I find the whole "but, but inflation!!!" arguments pretty ridiculous. Different times back then. There's literally no way Gone with the Wind would do 4b+ if released this year. Things have changed so much over the years, it's not even funny.

Just days after the movie hits the theaters, you find decent copies online either through streaming sites or torrents. And I have heard they're pretty good. If you check number of downloads you get an idea of how much it affects sales. With streaming it's harder to check, but I'm sure numbers are pretty high. Plus plenty of people have learned to wait for the dvd/bluray release. With Netflix and so many on demand services, there are so many different ways to eventually watch the movie.

Back in the day, going to the cinema was one of the few things teenagers used to do. Now so many of them prefer to stay inside and watch whatever they want whenever they feel like it.

Anyway, I enjoyed Avatar and to all the people who keep saying that it was not a "must watch again" kind of movie, all I have to say is that you're wrong (or at least that it doesn't apply to everyone). Almost every person I know told me that it was the only movie they've watched at the cinema 3+ times. I was in Edinburgh when it came out and had to wait a month!!! to watch it in Glasgow, since there was 3d Max there. It was literally sold out for an entire month. The person I went with was watching it for the third time and didn't mind traveling to another city just to watch the movie in a bigger cinema.

Some of you should consider taking you personal feelings aside before making statements about other people and how much *they* enjoyed the movie.

Ty sir exactly my point, completly different context, the inflation argument just doesnt work.

And the Star Wars insanity continues as the numbers for Wedsnesday are released and the movie actualy made 1M more than it did on Thuesday, so ye this is gona break 1 billion on the USA by the end of its 5th weak if it continues on this path. Its now tracking almost 100 M ahead of Jurassic World, its likely gona be 150M + ahead of it by the end of its second weakend. Worldwide its over 760 M now without even having released on the worlds second largest movie market. 

On box office mojo, the average price now is double the price of 20 years ago. If you go to 3D Imax compared to the average it might be like that but it's also not hard to go to a matinee. I frequently go for $7.50 these days, or buy tickets at Costco 2 for 16 thought it might have finally gone up after a few years.

Yes GWTW benefited hugely from releases, but most movies on the list didn't. And no Star wars wouldn't have passed it already, GWTW was huge when it came out as well, with a huge level of hype from the book. And movies can't do that well on releases without ongoing huge popularity.

But we're starting to go in circles. I've made the points I want to make. Inflation is a valid form of comparison no matter what a few forum goers on vgchartz think.

And ppl have unmade most of those points for you, youre stuck on the price of the tickets and how that should make it easier for movies to make money, but youre completly ignoring the context we live in x the context ppl lived in 30+ years ago. You see a movie from 1927 with a suposed adjusted to inflation gross of over a billion and you have to wonder if that movie nowadays would even pass the 100 million let alone get to the suposed 1 billion, with how everything has changed on ppls lives and how movie releases are handled. This is like doing a cientific experiment about a certain plant growth in the desert than wanting to use the statistics of that experiment to determine how the same plant would grow on the Amazon Rain Forest, completly different enviroments/contexts would make for completly different results, I cant aplly the data from one environment to the other, thats not how things work, movies made what they made because they released when they released, you take any movie, even Force Awakens that is beasting on the Box Office and might become the bigest gross ever, and change the context it was in when it released and the results every single time will be different.

Are you wondering why VGChartz's communitee cares about sale numbers?

Heh, not me.

Man, I feel like an alien. I legitimately feel like I'm the only one that just isn't a Star Wars fan.

Is there anyone else on this site that just isn't in to this whole Star Wars craze?

As a kid, I guess I was kinda strange. My heroes were Bruce Lee and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Movies like Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon give me all the nostalgia I need. I also really got into the ninja turtles. Michael Jackson was also my idol and will forever be so. He was the first person that just literally made my jaw completely drop. Both in his style and the way he presented himself and his skills as a songwriter.

For some reason, I never got into Star Wars and I didn't pick up on it from anyone I was around either. ALways heard about it just wasn't interested.

Hahahaha, I LOVE THIS!!! Really, it'll just make it so damn incredible if it actually DOES happen. Cameron's sequels do better than the original's. He's a master. He already said it himself he is going all out and wants to prove the original was no fluke.

Once the trailer hits.....BAMMM, everyone will be in! Mark my words. I'm betting all I have on this. :D And I cannot wait any longer. 

Exactly!!! I don't get it. Since when does a film need staying power to be successful??? Avatar was HUGE and it was a new franchise. It didn't have all the gimmicks of a Star Wars which is why it is so marketable and fan-crazy. Avatar is just an awesome movie that just so happen to have done really well because it WAS done WELL.

I think the foreign market AND ESPECIALLY CHINA will make Avatar 2 hit $3 billion+

Avatar 2 won't gross as much as the first one domestically. I think it'll look something like this. $400-600 million domestically. $2.4-2.6 billion internationally.

Avatar did $760 million domestically and $2 billion internationally.

Hmmm, I think you're kinda off on those estimates. Especially with E.T and Star Wars.

I think E.T is closer to like 135-140 million according to boxofficemojo.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=et.htm&adjust_yr=1&p=.htm

And I think Titanic did better than Star Wars internationally. People say it grossed more than Titanic worldwide but I'm not buying it. 

The thing that will keep Star Wars international number a lot less than Avatars will be the difference in currency exchange, in 2009/early 2010 the U.S dollar was a lot weaker than it is now. Even if the currency exchange rate was the same, it still would have made less than Avatar in the international box office, but it would have been much closer than it will be now.