Avatar: Fourth Highest Grossing Box Office Movie Ever

James Cameron's huge hit, Avatar, has broken all sorts of records since it came out three weekends ago. As of Sunday January 3, the worldwide blockbuster has came in at number one on the U.S. Box Office charts and has grossed over $352 million dollars in the U.S. alone since its debut a week before Christmas (according to Empire Online). On the week of January 1^st, the movie grossed over $68 million compared to Sherlock Holmes which came in at number 2 with 'only' $38 million. Within just the last 17 days since its release, Avatar has raked in over $ 1 billion dollars worldwide.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that Avatar has not lost its momentum after its first week on the charts. The first two weeks both brought in over $75 million dollars and the third brought in just under $70 million. This is quite impressive considering the fact that a lot of movies see a sharp drop in sales after the first week at number one. Just to put this into perspective, Avatar had the "highest domestic gross ever for a movie on its third weekend" (IndieWIRE Blog Network). It is quite obvious which movie most Americans were seeing this weekend. Sherlock Holmes and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel only brought in about half of what Avatar brought in. After the top three, sales show a sharp decline with the fourth and fifth place movies bringing in under $20 million.

I believe there are several reasons why Avatar has become so successful. For one thing, it came out just one week before Christmas. Adults started taking their vacations and many kids began there winter breaks close to this time. This allowed more people to go to the movies. Second, Avatar came out at a time when other movies had been out for some time and had already reached their peak. There were really no other movies that had a chance of going up against a movie like Avatar. It was a fresh new action packed movie that was coming out just in time for people who were starting their vacations. Third, News Years weekend is another big weekend for movies. In almost all cases, if you have a hit movie from an acclaimed director that is coming out a week before Christmas and goes through New Years, it will probably have quite a string of success. Fourth, a video game based on the movie had come out and was widely received by video gamers everywhere. The people who had not yet seen the movie but played the game had probably decided to see the movie. Finally, James Cameron is one of the most critically acclaimed movie directors in existence. Who can possibly forget that he is the one who directed Titanic, the highest grossing Box Office movie ever? I am sure that the success of the movie is spread by word of mouth. Who doesn't want to see a movie that has unbelievable special effects? So the question is can Avatar beat Titanic? That may be a little far fetched. As of right now, Avatar has to rake in another $800 million dollars before it surpasses Titanic's nearly $2 billion dollar total gross. Still, being the fourth highest grossing movie in Box Office history is nothing to sneeze at.

Sources:

James White, "Avatar Reigns Again at U.S. Box Office," Empire Online.

Ann Thompson, "Avatar Breaks $1 Billion Mark after 17 days," IndieWire.com.