If you live under a stone, then you may not be aware that THE AVENGERS is tearing up the box office. However the movie is experiencing a 64% drop in attendance in it's second weekend (typical drop off for huge opening weekends) and is forecast to bring in 74.5 million. The Marvel movie made $29.1m on Friday.
THE AVENGERS need to top $75.5m to claim the throne from James Cameron for the second weekend frame. Not an easy feat.
I think you will see a lot of repeat business on Saturday personally. Just my feeling on it. I know I am going for the fourth time tonight. And of course Mother's Day is tomorrow so that could sway things a bit more.
Very interesting race for the record this weekend!
Jim here. It just doesn't want to stop, nor should it! According to my calculations, AVATAR should pass the unheard of pinnacle of $2.5 BILLION dollars worldwide on Friday night. It should pass $700 million domestically on Saturday too! These are simply crazy numbers. Take into consideration if a star or director had first dollar points to the tune of say 10 or 15%. Stunning payday. I am not saying Cameron had anywhere near this type of deal, but still - the potential is there for AVATAR 2 and 3.
But they could earn more. A LOT more...
If Fox was smart, they would start marketing the fact that AVATAR will be bowing out of a lot of screens by March 5th. This will create another groundswell of people who have already seen it, but want to see it again in its full glory on the big screen. It has to be marketed correctly though. I remember Neil Gaiman twittering (well at least his publicist!) about losing CORALINE screens to Disney last spring - getting the word out that if you want to see it in 3D - do it NOW. I thought it was very effective. A limited audience to be sure, but I think studios should jump on this standard marketing ploy when the opportunity presents itself. It is called "creating urgency".
Actually I can see why Fox may NOT want to release the 3D Blu-ray in November: A potential re-release could be in the making. Once the summer swath of 3D movies are out there, I see no reason why they would not sneak AVATAR in once again in the fall. 2D on a small screen does NOT cut it! Could happen folks.
I just took in AVATAR myself for the eleventh time over the weekend. ELEVEN times. And I still am not saturated by it. I took my parents who are in their 60's to an IMAX screening (almost sold out too for a matinee) and they thoroughly enjoyed it. My mother said: "Boy that last guy was REALLY hard to kill! (speaking of Col. Quaritch)" I had to laugh about that - he really was a tough SOB. I plan on bringing my AVATAR screenings to an even dozen sometime this weekend.
Guys - one last thing. I am working on an AVATAR 2 story that will have some more revelations included. Stay tuned! :-)
Jim here. AVATAR is just hitting its stride isn't it? Can it topple TITANIC as the number one movie of all time? Personally I say yes. There is still time left before Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND hits us and snags the 3D screens - look what AVATAR has done in only 20 DAYS! As of January 6, it had $375m domestic and $757m internationally for a total of $1.13 BILLION - besting the previous #2, Peter Jackson's RETURN OF THE KING. 20 days people!
So what do you think? Any guesses at this point as to where AVATAR's box office will wind up? Don't forget, re-releases are possible later in the year - especially as it looks best on the largest 3D screens available. And of course the awards should boost it too, especially if it walks away with armfuls of gold.
I say TITANIC will sink again AND to the only man capable of sinking her... James Cameron. :-) Oh, and his profit participation points are starting to look pretty good - wouldn't you say?
Michael here. Congratulations to James Cameron, Jon Landau, and everyone else involved in Avatar for passing the billion mark worldwide after only three weekends!
Avatar also had the best 3rd weekend of all time, raking in $68.3 million according to estimates.
It makes me very happy to see Avatar doing so well, as it not only ensures us that Cameron will get whatever budget he wants for his next movie, but it shows Hollywood that 3D tentpoles can rake in huge amounts of cash and that giving a great director complete control and a big budget on an original idea can reap gigantic rewards.
The questions now are whether Avatar can beat The Dark Knight's domestic take of $533 million, and whether it can beat Titanic worldwide. In any case, Avatar is already guaranteed to have the 2nd biggest wordwide gross, behind only Cameron's Titanic.
Go Avatar!
Update 12/29/09: Avatar broke the record for biggest 2nd weekend, taking in $75.617 million. It also grossed $19.4 million on Monday, beating its previous Monday. Wow!
Michael here. The estimate for Avatar's 2nd weekend is $75 million, which is only a 2.6% drop from last weekend, and less than a million dollars behind The Dark Knight's record for biggest 2nd weekend. We'll have to see what the final numbers are, but it seems Avatar could take this record if it has a strong Sunday.
"Outstanding" is perhaps the best way of describing Avatar's box office performance. It looks like it has a very solid chance of beating Transformers 2's gross to become the domestic highest earning movie of 2009, and a billion worldwide is also in its sights.
Michael here with some Avatar morsels to tide everyone over until their next viewing of Cameron's masterpiece:
1. A new website - http://www.learnnavi.org/ - has appeared that aims to teach the Na'Vi language to people interested in learning the Paul Frommer-invented tongue.
The amount of work that went into both the language and this new site is very impressive. I love what we hear of the Na'vi language in the movie and the official soundtrack, and I am in awe of anyone who manages to learn to speak it. It's a truly beautiful language. I'll have to start studying!
Thanks to m4st4 for the heads up!
2. Avatar grossed $16.4 million on Monday, which is the #3 non-Holiday Monday of all time behind Pirates 2 and The Dark Knight. The incredible word of mouth is already letting its power be felt.
3. Cameron spoke with MTV about Avatar sequel plans:
Cameron made clear that the next film won't be a prequel, recounting previous backstory, but will begin after the events of the initial movie. "We'll follow Jake and Neytiri," he confirmed.
With Avatar's resounding box office success, the sequels are inevitable. And even better, Cameron promises they won't take nearly as long to make as the first Avatar:
"So now we have Jake, we have Neytiri. Sam can step right back into it, the characters will fit them like a glove, and we'll just go on. So a lot of the start-up torque that had to be done for one movie really makes more sense if you play it out across several films."
I wonder how long now until Cameron announces his next film?
**SAME DAY UPDATE: Comingsoon.net reports that Fox's official number is $77,025,481 which is just short of the Will Smith thriller. It is essentially a dead heat between the two but looks like AVATAR might be in position #2. Bah.
Jim here. I knew the weather was letting up a little bit and it seems many others believed so too and helped push AVATAR past I AM LEGEND to the top December box office opening weekend of all time!
To further ice the cake, AVATAR is an original property. Get this: AVATAR dropped practically NOTHING from Saturday to Sunday (only 3%!) and is experiencing tremendously powerful word of mouth.
Fox is confident that the record will hold for the final official tally. AVATAR opened on 3,452 screens with 2,023 of them being 3D.
The revised number for worldwide box office take now stands at an amazing $236.5 million - despite the massive winter storm in northeastern US and the European deep freeze. IMAX theaters also broke records with AVATAR besting TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN by a margin of $13.6 million to $11.3 million.
The winter storms will only solidify the legs of AVATAR and you will see continued masses flocking to AVATAR as the weather improves and then of course the holidays are upon us. Looking very good guys!! Love it!
Source: Variety
UPDATE 12/20/09: Michael here. According to Fox, Avatar has grossed $73 million domestically and $159.18 million internationally (not including Japan, China, Italy, Poland, Argentina, and Uruguay, in which Avatar has not yet opened), for a worldwide debut of $232.18 million. This is the highest original content (non-sequel, non-franchise) opening weekend ever.
Michael here. AVATAR has grossed $27 million on Friday from 3,452 locations, according to Fox. This number, which includes $3.5 million from midnight showings, puts Avatar on track for an $80 million weekend, which would be the best December opening weekend ever (ahead of I Am Legend's $77 million).
The heavy snow on the east coast may slow things down a bit for Saturday grosses, but the movie is so mind blowingly amazing that I am sure any lost money will be made up for shortly by positive word of mouth.
The real test will be how the movie holds during the upcoming week, and of course next weekend, when it faces Sherlock Holmes. The long window in which it will be playing on IMAX will help it's final gross tremendously, as will the lack of competition over the coming months, aside from Holmes.
I can't wait to see how Avatar does overseas too - I expect it to be huge.
What are your predictions for Avatar's final domestic and worldwide cumes?
All contents Copyright © 2006-2021, MarketSaw Media. All Rights Reserved. All copyrights and trademarks on this website belong to their respective owners.
If you live under a stone, then you may not be aware that THE AVENGERS is tearing up the box office. However the movie is experiencing a 64% drop in attendance in it's second weekend (typical drop off for huge opening weekends) and is forecast to bring in 74.5 million. The Marvel movie made $29.1m on Friday.
