Will Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ Beat Cameron’s ‘Titanic?’

Posted by Dr. Cole Abaius (cole.abaius@filmschoolrejects.com) on January 4, 2010 Share

Last night on another scintillating episode of Reject Radio, special guest co-host John Gholson and I addressed a fascinating trend that seems to be happening with the drop-off rate of returns on the Avatar box office. Notably, that there’s barely been any drop off.

According to Box Office Mojo, the flick opened to $77 million and only lost 1.8% the next weekend (with a gain of $75.6 million) and only a subsequent drop of 9.4% the following weekend (with $68.4 million more).

Compare that to another event movie – Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen’s opening of $108.9 million. Impressive, until you consider that it took a dive by 61.2% the next weekend to take in $42.3 million. For those keeping score, I would mention that Avatar made essentially the same two-week total that Fallen did, but that doesn’t really matter considering that the blue-aliened beast already destroy the Baygasm internationally, and is currently sitting in the 5-spot for overall, all-time international gross.

The top spot is held, of course, by Titanic.

Which calls for an infographic.

AVATAR

TITANIC

Shown above are the tracking shots for both Cameron-directed films. Of course, this is just domestic, it doesn’t account for inflation, and there’s most likely no way that Avatar will last the same 41 weeks at the box office that Titanic did, but the thing is tracking hard and fast, gunning for that number one spot.

In order to do so, the film would have to leap past both Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King as well as the whopping $1.84 Billion earned by Titanic. It currently boasts $1.02 Billion worldwide.

So everybody start the countdown with me. If Avatar makes a nickel over $817,500,994 during its remaining lifespan at the box office, it’s officially beaten the champ. Cameron will have beaten himself.

That’s still a long way to go, but if the next few weekends hold steady, it we could very well have an underdog upset on our hands.

While FSR does not condone gambling of any kind (that does not involve you somehow ending up playing a game of Chicken in your underwear with an oncoming train), this is the sort of thing that you movie nerds should totally salivate over – especially if a few bucks (or your honor) is on the line.

Personally, I’m still convinced Big Momma’s House 2 has a shot at the big game internationally. That’s where the smart money is at.

What do you think?

Source: Box Office Mojo

Related Posts with Thumbnails


Read more articles by Dr. Cole Abaius

« Previous Article | Next Article »

Related Topics:

Features, Opinions, , , , , , , ,

Your Ad Here

Comment Policy: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Film School Rejects reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. We also reserve the right to modify any curse words in your comments and make you look like an idiot. Thank You!

  • jessica
    if avatar beets titanic it only because it is more money for a movie ticket now then is was in 1997 so i think someone should make a point that its not realy the number 1 movie
    thanks
  • stevey_the director_
    james cameron will beat his last record, genius idea to take it out on holiday season just like titanic, only this time there was more talk around the movie. the technology, 3-d and story was fantastic, which leads to cameron's "psychological all-american plan" (note that he is canadian lol). taking it out before award season gave it an advantage, as it got nominated for multiple golden globes and is almost sure to be nominated for best picture at the Oscars (please 10 pics!). not only is it exceptional for self-promoting commercials, but adding the fact that no better movie will come out anytime soon makes it one more reason to go see this one. Bravo Cameron and let's hope you keep your promise of making a sequel (although i do not support the idea), only when i start thinking about a plot where the human come to get revenge, with an ending as deep as The abyss, the idea starts to get me worked up!! ohh and before i forget james cameron also thought of something that michael bay didn't, avatar came out last week in china and other countries giving it a major boost, plus it became the highest grossing american movie in france and the biggest opening in china. What a slap from the fine folks at 20th century fox.
  • Rohith
    I like AVATAR very much but I doubt if it can actually make $817 million more.

    Even if it makes around $250 million more in USA/Canada for a total of over $500, it will still need around $600 million more from overseas which might not be as easy as it sounds. I would say Titanic just got very lucky to collect $1.24 Billion from overseas. The second highest overseas box office ever was just $742 million by LOTR 3, which Avatar will beat soon but I don't see Avatar ending up with a $1.3 billion overseas boxoffice. It's just not possible unless people in every other country in the world have nothing better to watch than AVATAR :-D
  • oisínodonnabháin
    I went to see it with my mother and the last time I went to see a movie in the cinema with her was, you guessed it Titanic. It'll break it.
  • adamcharles
    I think it's got a better than decent shot for a number of reasons.

    1 - It was released during the tail-end of the holiday season and the next giant spectacle film isn't due out until March. The films coming out between now and then that have a shot of supplanting it as the weekend movie to see are all rated R. This gives Avatar 2 full months to get another $250 mil domestically (an average of $30 million dollars a week).

    2- The price of 3-D tickets are about 30-50% higher than its standard counterpart, so it doesn't need to sell a ton of tickets to hit $30 mil a week, and I don't think there's another 3-D film coming out until Alice in Wonderland, which probably makes it easier for theater owners to not replace it for the next big film.

    3 - Because it's a giant spectacle film (and in 3-D, and well received) it's a film that most demands to be seen on the big screen to fully enjoy, so repeat viewings in the theater is more likely for something like this than Sherlock Holmes which probably won't lose much of its appeal when viewed at home.
  • Aleric
    /bleh
  • You heard it here first, Tooth Fairy will overtake Avatar and make a whopping 983,543,214 billion domestically.

    But in all seriousness, I think Avatar will keep on trucking through. A lot of people haven't seen it yet, and big business attracts people. It has a while to go before it's dropping off.
  • deltavoyage
    I'll be honest - I think it could do it. It's already made over a billion dollars worldwide, and it's had minute drops in box office numbers. It's got quite a ways to go, but I definitely think it is possible for Avatar to beat Titanic.
blog comments powered by Disqus