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How Long Can Avatar Keep The Box Office Record?By Scott Gwin: 2010-02-04 10:30:34
Sometime on Tuesday night someone, somewhere, bought a movie ticket for Avatar, and more than likely they were seeing for at least the third time. That ticket pushed the movie past $600,788,188 making it the biggest selling movie ever in US theaters. The accomplishment followed last week when it crossed the $1.9 billion line as the highest grossing movie of all time world-wide.
The question now is, how long will it hold that title? Titanic reigned supreme in both categories for more than a decade. With Avatar looking like it might finally settle in somewhere just above the $700 million mark domestically, is there any chance any future movie could even come close to touching it for another ten years? Quite possibly, and maybe sooner than you might think. Cameron has touted his film as being a game changer. Whether or not he's really altered the film world at an artistic level with his 3D, he's certainly done it at the box office. Avatar has been shown in 3D on more screens around the world than any other movie before. The movie's financial success has only helped to fuel 3D's popularity, making it the new studio favorite format for blockbusters. It also means continued added fees for the privilege of seeing the movie and therefore higher box office sales. Consider The Dark Knight, which is now the number-three domestic all-time seller with $533 million. If its ticket sales had been bolstered by the same kinds of 3D fees that Avatar enjoyed, it likely would have topped $700 million, possibly even reaching as high as $800 million. Even Shrek 2, which would have banked $540 million at today's standard box office ticket dollars, would have given Avatar a run for its money in this new 3D market. You could argue that the only reason Avatar did so well in 3D was because it was so pretty, and other movies wouldn't do so well. Was Pandora really better in 3D than Gotham City or Far Far Away could ever hope to be? Perhaps, but that's yet to be seen. Until another blockbuster gets the same level 3D treatment as Avatar, there's no way to know for sure. Avatar's box office total is no mean feat, but its achievement will also bring a whole new world of financial competition to the box office. Whether or not it will truly have set a standard in that world is yet to be seen. Oh, and in case you're wondering about how much of an achievement Avatar has made compared to Titanic in actual ticket sales, the answer is: not so well. Based on average ticket prices today and in 1997 when Titanic rolled out, Avatar has only sold about two-thirds of the tickets. Titanic's gross total after inflation is around $970 billion. Of course, that's nothing compared to Gone With The Wind. In today's dollars it would have grossed over $1.5 billion. And that's without 3D.
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