Avatar will break Titanic's box office record: we've got the numbers
Posted Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 4:59 PM Central
Last updated Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 8:19 PM Central
by John Couture
You may remember a little opinion piece I wrote last week in which I crunched a couple of numbers and proclaimed that my gut told me that "Avatar will surpass $500 million, but fall just short of The Dark Knight for third place all-time."
Well, exactly one week later, I'm telling you to forget all of that. Avatar will not only fly pass The Dark Knight, but it's going to cruise past Titanic and enter uncharted box office territory.
When it's all said and done, Avatar will be the top domestic grossing movie of all-time.
It's already broken the record for the fastest movie to reach $1 billion in world-wide grosses and it's not showing any sign of letting up. So, where did I go wrong last week?
While I correctly predicted that Avatar would continue to outpace The Dark Knight and make up the difference in their box office in since day of release numbers (then almost $100 million, now only $40 million), I failed to take into account the massive amount of money that Avatar would take in last weekend due to the second consecutive holiday weekend.
For evidence, look at how much the new record for third weekend of box office. It's ok, I've posted it below for you straight from Box Office Mojo.
Yes, it shattered the previous record by $23 million and bested The Dark Knight's numbers by $26 million. At a third weekend gross in excess of $68 million, that only feel 9% from the previous week, even a conservative drop of say 30% (roughly the same drop for The Dark Knight from week 3 to 4) would put it's fourth weekend total at around $50 million.
And yes, that would destroy Titanic's current record for highest fourth weekend of all time. Don't believe me? Check it out below.
It should also be noted that these ridiculous numbers are also being aided by the more expensive IMAX & 3D tickets. Sure, it's sort of like today's major leaguers using Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) to set new home run records (allegedly), but there's no asterisk in the record book.
So, the question becomes, how do I know that Avatar will beat Titanic?
Well, if you take the $50 million conservative estimate for this upcoming weekend plus say a conservative $20 million for the rest of this week, Avatar's total box office cume will sit around $430 million. If you take the most conservative projections and account for the relative lack of competition at the box office, it's very possible that Avatar will surpass Titanic by Valentine's day.
And those numbers don't even factor in the Oscar bump that it will almost assuredly get when the nominations are announced early next month. I am going out on a limb and saying that it's going to happen, but if it falls short, we will know in the next couple of weeks.
The NFL playoffs start this weekend and they will capture a large part of the target audience for Avatar, so that could cripple its numbers. However, I think there's enough interest across all demographics that will more than make up for its effect.