James Cameron’s Avatar did the unthinkable this weekend, and managed to take claim its spot as the number one highest-grossing film worldwide. It’s worth noting that it did so by outgrossing previous number one, now number two, Titanic. Titanic, as you may recall, was also a James Cameron movie. This means that James Cameron now holds the top two spots on the all-time list. Oh yeah, and both movies were also released by 20th Century Fox. Apparently the movie making formula goes like this:
(James Cameron + 20th Century Fox) * Big Movie Concept = $$$
When Titanic finished its run in theaters, it managed to pull in $1,843,201,268 in the worldwide box office. This past weekend, after the numbers were finally crunched, Avatar’s total rose to $1,858,866,889. And it’s only going to climb higher. Avatar was released on December 18th, which means it’s only been in theaters for 39 days. When you consider that a lot of high-budget, high-grossing movies have theater runs of almost three months, it’s unbelievable to try and fathom what kind of total Avatar will finish with.
Currently, Avatar is in the number two spot when it comes to the all-time domestic totals. It sits at $554.98 million, and it’s eyeing Titanic, who sits at the top with $600.8 million. This past week, it was announced that Avatar had passed The Dark Knight for the number two spot, and I give it two weeks before it sits alone at the top. With Oscar nominations set to be announced on February 2nd, chances are anyone who hasn’t seen Avatar, will. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some lined up to see it for their second, or tenth time in some cases.
For the record, I have not seen Avatar. I’ll catch it on Netflix in a few months.
