If there’s one thing Hollywood movie junkies love as much as big-budget blockbusters it’s the numbers porn associated with these multi-million dollar earners.
And the numbers are finally out for the highly successful Avatar.
Avatar has continued its phenomenal performance and it’s now being proclaimed as the box-office superstar of the decade, much like how Titanic was in the previous decade. Avatar raked in $350 million in just 17 days and over one billion dollars worldwide. The James Cameron flick also set a New Year’s Day weekend box office records with $68.3 million, a drop of just 10 percent from the figures it posted during Christmas weekend. This makes Avatar the highest third weekend grossing movie ever, surpassing Spider-Man.
Expect next weekend to become another round of record setting as the movie hits the $400 million mark, which will push it past Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen as the highest grossing movie of 2009 and also making it part of the top ten highest grossing movies of all time.
What’s quite impressive about these figures is that Avatar is not even a sequel so there’s no prepackaged audience here. Secondly, most of the money is being made on 3D and IMAX screens, which could herald the start of a shift towards more “high tech” presentations for future Hollywood movies. Third, this is a movie that has been released in the holiday season, not in the summer where movies enjoy more audiences because people are on vacation. Avatar now has to contend with students returning to school and people going back to work after the holidays.
Whatever happens though, Avatar has made a mark financially. Artistically, the verdict’s still up.