Sorry, Jack, but Titanic just got sunk… but a bunch of mutant blue cat people.
CBS reports that the James Cameron’s CGI behemoth Avatar has stomped on the long-reigning king of the box office known as Titanic — which perhaps coincidentally was Cameron’s last mass-market film.
The film currently has topped $1.8 billion, which is pretty good, considering Avatar was rumored to have had a half-billion-dollar budget. It goes without saying that it’s the highest-grossing sci-fi/genre flick as well, blowing recent champs like the Dark Knight, Iron Man and Spider-Man 3 right out of the water.
“To get to those numbers,” Hollywood.com’s Paul Dergarabedian told CBS, “you need repeat business, you need great word-of-mouth, and you need to grab an audience basically across the board.” Then again, with already six weeks at number one, the Avatar inertia doesn’t look to be stopping anytime soon.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Great word of mouth? Really? Not a single friend who’s seen it liked the story. And that’s all that matters to me.
January 26th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
““To get to those numbers,” Hollywood.com’s Paul Dergarabedian told CBS, “you need repeat business, you need great word-of-mouth, and you need to grab an audience basically across the board.”
Not to mention premium pricing for 3D glasses, essentially adding an extra ticket purchase for every two or three tickets purchased.
January 26th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Still haven’t seen it.
January 26th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Adjusted for inflation, the movie’s as big as… Grease.
January 26th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Inflation’s only half the story. The film’s mostly being seen in 3-D which is 3-4 dollars more expensive than seeing a 2-D film. Imax is as much as twice the cost of a standard film. So the numbers are even more inflated than merely natural time-based inflation would account for.
I know there’s endless sites that figure out the “real” success of films based on corrected ticket prices. I’ll be curious to see where this show up on them.
January 26th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Yeah, you guys are right. What a flop.
Fanboys… God Bless ‘em.
January 26th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Vinnie – boxofficemojo.com has the all-time domestic box adjusted for inflation. As was said earlier, Avatar is ranked #26. Just behind Grease.
Bigger than Titanic? It ain’t even bigger than 101 Dalmations.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
January 26th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
The film was a bit flat, as far as story and characters go.
Maybe theaters will drop the prices in tickets, now that the record has been broken (which was the idea all along, right?)
January 27th, 2010 at 12:22 am
This does not surprise me. James Cameron was pushing into new ground in cinema. He wanted to see the envelope stretched past where it was. And I think he did that.
Whenever someone pushes past greatness, people pay attention. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see this break $2.2B.
January 27th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
@Vinnie: “Imax is as much as twice the cost of a standard film.”
Well, no.
I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia where an evening movie ticket costs $10.50.
When I saw “Avatar”, I saw it in 3D IMAX and it cost $15.00. So, no. IMAX shows aren’t twice the cost of a standard film.
Yes, ticket prices, overall, are more now then when “Titanic” was on the screens. Both, IMO, are similar in respect that each share a less then original over all story but boast visuals geared for large screen viewing.
I’m sure if I ever saw “Titanic” on TV or if I ever watch “Avatar” on TV I won’t give them much attention. But both, again IMO, were worth seeing on the big screen.