Quote for truth.  I loved the Disney animated  films of the 90's like the Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.  Nowadays, everything is CGI.  I want to see this movie.  I tried and tried to convince my kid but she wasn't interested.  I'm going to see this one by myself if I have to.

I helped number 2 and 3.

Wanted to see avatar but got outvoted. Too bad, alvin sucked >_>

Box Office Mojo is the most reliable site out there. They do track studio actuals when available, and are usually one of the first sites to report sales data.

The reason the estimates were lower is that they were indeed studio estimates - and even they thought Avatar was not going to do as well as it did.

Here is the deal with tracking, on a day-by-day basis:

• Saturday morning: Friday estimates come in. Usually very close, if not right on the line of being actual numbers
• Sunday morning: Weekend estiamates. This uses Friday estimates + Saturday estimates + Sunday projections (which is where the inaccuracy usually lies)
• Monday afternoon: Weekend actuals. Studios finally report actual ticket data on Mondays.

This should help explain the American BO cycle. Most websites and news stories use estimated data rather than actuals because its quicker. There is no way to really fix for inaccuracies concerning weekend data. For Avatars first week, we had a big snowstorm on the east coast, followed by higher-than-expected numbers for Sunday (which is usually down by a very predicable number) which caused the issues.

I am going to see Avatar sometime at my local IMAX 3D. It costs a whopping $14 per ticket. No wonder Avatar is doing so well - they are killing everyone with the 3D prices.

And if anyone is interested: Avatar is absolutely RIPPING IT UP overseas. It is at $405 million outside the US, with Russia being one of the hottest markets at $45m in two weeks. That may not seem much compared to $200m in the US, but for Russia, that is about two days away from being the highest grossing movie in history.

14 per ticket? Try $20 Australian.

With the current conversion thats 17.8920.

American tickets are pretty cheap. Which goes to show why its doing so well overseas. Plus the fact its still showing in a lot of 2d screens awell plus imax.

Their is nothing amazing coming out in January or February so Avatar should stay in the top ten for at least 9 more weeks.

did 19 million on monday in USA (better than last mondays 16 million in USA) (source boxofficemojo), do u understand how astonishing and amazing this movies box office performance is so far!

Avatar might actually increase week over week...insane.

I saw it yesterday. IMAX 3D!

Deserves all the money it's getting.

Watched it 3 times. Firstly at a normal cinema, secondly at a 3d theatre and at an Imax 3D theatre.

My god look at them Avatar legs!