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Forums - General Discussion - Avatar passes 1 billion dollars in sales in just over 2 weeks

MontanaHatchet on 04 January 2010
Reasonable said:
MontanaHatchet said:
Reasonable said:
MontanaHatchet said:
Reasonable said:
--OkeyDokey-- said:
To put it in perspective, The Dark Knight took pretty much its entire theatrical run to make that milestone. Avatar did it in just 17 days. By next week it should beeat Return of the King and Pirates to become the second highest grossing movie of all time, behind Titanic.

Amazing.

Just to play Devil's Advocate, in the US Avatar is actually tracking just behind TDK (Avatar took 17 days to get to $350 Million and TDK did it in 14).  The non-US numbers however are really propelling it - although as noted many of those are higher priced 3D tickets - with an amazing split of US / non-US sales that is quite something.

Not that Cameron will care about TDK US numbers!  I doubt Avatar will have the legs to get to Titanic - you need obsessive teenage girls for that IMHO, just look at New Moon - but it's for sure going to tail out way above the next closest film to give Cameron unadjusted sales no 1 and 2 well clear of the pack.  Titanic is jus above $ 1.7 billion if I remember right (actually, it was over $1.8 Billion).  Avatar I think could get to $1.4 Billion or even $1.5 billion, although that assumes there is no huge collapse now the kids are back at school.

Lol.

Just lol.

Avatar has made over a billion dollars in just two weeks, and it's very popular among a wide variety of audiences. Teenage girls watch more than romantic dramas, you know.

I'm not talking about Avatar, I'm talking about the Leomania that caused teenage girls to add a big chunk to Titanic's performance.  Without that Titanic would have broken $1 Billion but would not have gotten the $ 1.8 billion it steamed to (if you'll pardon the pun).

I didn't say teenage girls only watch romatic dramas, but they do watch them a lot more than most other genres, particularly if they feature a male lead around which there is a certain level of... interest shall we say.

So no, not lol really, just known demographic facts.

As for Avatar, I'm tracking that pretty closely and have said often it is doing so well because it has become a true event picture - i.e. all sorts are going to see it and in all countries - however, 75% of its ticket sales have come from higher priced 3D performances, so while that doesn't detract from it's numbers, it does indicate it's not showing the numbers in line with a 2D release - i.e. less people have seen it to produce those results vs similar results for a 2D picture such as TDK.

Right now it's looking good with a quiet period for January/Febuary - although on the other hand the holiday's are over and it should see a more standard drop going forward now.  The next two weeks, particularly international figures, will give a good idea where it may be heading relative to Titanic.

However, unless the 3D / CGI aspect shows the same legs as something like Leomania (beacause the film itself isn't interesting enough to warrant repeat viewings and the characters themselves are pretty bland) then it will start to tail off earlier than Titanic did - hence my point.

And remember Titanic's $1.8 billion was accrued when ticket prices were less - so it really is important to understand just how amazing the $1.8 billion was, and how much it relied on the combination of an event picture status - everyone and their granny was going to see it - plus the double whammy of having a genuine hysteria around it's male lead that had huge numbers of teenage girls around the globe going to see it 10 times or more to swoon.

 

Leomania? Please. There have been some movies that had made tons of movies without any sort of obvious appeal to teenage girls.

This post of yours is pretty big, and I'm way too tired to tackle it all. So if you're talking about ticket prices, please take a look at this list of films adjusted for inflation. Are you going to claim that Star Wars and Gone With The Wind are big films with the teenage girls?

If you can't read the post there's no point responding.  Not least if you're basically refusing to actually understand a written about and noted fact.  As for the list - I've seen it many times, that's a site I use regularly.  It doesn't change the validity of my arguement one iota.

Montana, as I've seen in other posts you've steamed in and seem unable to then pause and consider you might actually be wrong, so I'm not going to get into extended back and forth.

My point is Titanic benefited from Leomania, which it absolutely did, and that Avatar won't have that advantage although like Titanic it will benefit from having a relatively high level of 'must see' status.

So to be blunt I see nothing in any of your posts that actually convinces me I'm wrong.  On the other hand...

 

 

Your arrogance is quite annoying.

You argued that Titanic got its humongous worldwide gross from Leomania, or some kind of rabid obsession by the teenage girl audience. And then you tried to paint how amazing the 1.8 billion dollar gross is, when I showed you that in total tickets sold, it's not even in the top 5. It benefited from its time just as much as Avatar. Your whole point about it not being able to hold because it doesn't have interesting characters (and whatnot) is solely personal opinion and isn't indicated any way in box office figures. For a movie that supposedly isn't interesting and has bland characters, it's been seeing ridiculous box office numbers for weeks now.

I pointed out that many of the most popular movies of all time (by ticket sales sold) don't have some kind of obvious appeal to teenage girls (seriously, it's not like the girls we're going crazy over Luke Skywalker), and that in reality, Titanic just benefited from the inflated currency of the time. And you earlier brought up Twilight: New Moon, but that doesn't even come close to the highest grossing film of 2009 (it's Avatar, in case you didn't know).



 

 

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zuvuyeay on 04 January 2010

that is impressive,over a billion in 3weeks,i didn't think that would happen,

i haven't got round to seeing it yet,i want to though

cameron will have 1 & 2 on the all time BOmojo list,that is amazing,i wonder how much avatar cost then,does anyone know box office mojo doesn't say

thats interesting NJ5 about the conversion rate,i never thought about it like that

titanic took a whopping £1.2b in overseas takings and £1.8b overall,i guess if anything is going to beat titanic then avatar has a better chance than most with all the 3D hype,it must be half decent to take over $1b already though,amazing



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Retrasado on 04 January 2010
MontanaHatchet said:
Reasonable said:

If you can't read the post there's no point responding.  Not least if you're basically refusing to actually understand a written about and noted fact.  As for the list - I've seen it many times, that's a site I use regularly.  It doesn't change the validity of my arguement one iota.

Montana, as I've seen in other posts you've steamed in and seem unable to then pause and consider you might actually be wrong, so I'm not going to get into extended back and forth.

My point is Titanic benefited from Leomania, which it absolutely did, and that Avatar won't have that advantage although like Titanic it will benefit from having a relatively high level of 'must see' status.

So to be blunt I see nothing in any of your posts that actually convinces me I'm wrong.  On the other hand...

 

 

Your arrogance is quite annoying.

You argued that Titanic got its humongous worldwide gross from Leomania, or some kind of rabid obsession by the teenage girl audience. And then you tried to paint how amazing the 1.8 billion dollar gross is, when I showed you that in total tickets sold, it's not even in the top 5. It benefited from its time just as much as Avatar. Your whole point about it not being able to hold because it doesn't have interesting characters (and whatnot) is solely personal opinion and isn't indicated any way in box office figures. For a movie that supposedly isn't interesting and has bland characters, it's been seeing ridiculous box office numbers for weeks now.

I pointed out that many of the most popular movies of all time (by ticket sales sold) don't have some kind of obvious appeal to teenage girls (seriously, it's not like the girls we're going crazy over Luke Skywalker), and that in reality, Titanic just benefited from the inflated currency of the time. And you earlier brought up Twilight: New Moon, but that doesn't even come close to the highest grossing film of 2009 (it's Avatar, in case you didn't know).

Montana, Titanic didn't get a lot of its initial gross from Leomania, but I can assure you that the reason it had the legs it did (and by extension, its $1.8 billion total) can be largely attributed to that. Hell, it was putting up $20 million in its TWELFTH weekend. That's just insane. That's more than 3 times what E.T did, and that movie also stayed up forever (It actually had more #1 weekends than Titanic did, but not consecutively). Can Avatar beat that? I doubt it, though it will probably break at least a few more weekend records (4/5/6th are $28/30/25 million respectively - by Titanic btw).

As I posted in another thread, Avatar will pass Titanic in:

13 days (January 17, 2010) @ $58 million/day or $406 million/week (the current rate; obviously this is unrealistic)

20 days (January 23, 2010) @ $40 million/day or $280 million/week

27 days (January 30, 2010) @ $30 million/day or $210 million/week

32 days (February 4, 2010) @ $25 million/day or $175 million/week

40 days (February 13, 2010) @ 20 million/day or $140 million/week

53 days (February 26, 2010) @ 15 million/day or $105 million/week

80 days (March 25, 2010) @ 10 million/day or $80 million/week

114 days (April 28, 2010) @ $7 million/day or $49 million/week

but the big question is how bigl will Avatar's legs be? As Reasonable pointed out, with kids going back to school this week and the holidays over, there is a signifcant potential for a large drop this week, though otoh there aren't any really compelling movies coming out in the near future so who knows? we shall see by the end of this week.

Either way, it will definitely destroy the other two movies ahead of it and make at least $1.4-1.5 billion, which is very, very impressive even with ticket prices being what they are. $1.4 billion @ an average of $10.50 a ticket (assuming 25/75 split between 2D/3D at $7/$12 a ticket) is still 133.3 million tickets. By comparison, Titanic's $1.8 billion at an average of $5 a ticket is a massive 360 million tickets, so yes it was more successful, but the studio isn't going to care because money is money no matter how you get it.

fun note: Gone With The Wind's $189 million from its first release in 1939 with an average price of just $0.30 per ticket would be equal to an unbelievably astronomical 630,000,000 tickets sold. (And yes, that figure is accurate as far as I can tell) No one will EVER beat that. EVER



Not trying to be a fanboy. Of course, it's hard when you own the best console eve... dang it

TheThunder on 05 January 2010

I haven't stepped a foot in a cinema since September 2008. Today I went with my cousin to see Avatar 3D IMAX digital sound ... etc. It was a really good movie, really well made. Not gonna pop in my best movies of all time or whatever (it's not even Cameron's best) but I really liked it and of course it goes without saying how great the CGI and cinematography is. Sure the story is basic and done by the numbers but I didn't mind it.



rendo on 05 January 2010

There may not have been teenage girls going to see Star Wars, but there were certainly teenage boys going to see Leia. ;)



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Jumpin on 11 January 2010

Domestic: $429,040,000 32.2%
+ Foreign: $902,100,000 67.8%

= Worldwide: $1,331,140,000

These sales are until Saturday. So I would guess in one weeks time we'll be sitting around the 1.6 billion dollar mark; getting very close to Titanic.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

zuvuyeay on 11 January 2010

i saw it today and its a good blockbuster,i mean if you are of the age like when i saw starwars/empire strikes back then i'm sure it is amazing,is this the first 3-d action blockbuster,this is the first full 3-d movie i have seen at the cinema and is the only reason i can think of for such massive box office,unless the 3-d price difference is just enormous

i would like to know how much it cost though,it must be one hell of an expensive budget



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Jumpin on 26 January 2010

Well, it achieved its destiny and has now almost tied it up with Titanic; next boxoffice mojo update should record it passing. The next big Sunday update might see it pass 2 billion.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Jumpin on 26 January 2010

Anyway, on ticket prices, Avatar may be more expensive, but that doesn't necessarilly reflect that we can afford more now than we could then as a people. The economic situation now is fairly bad compared to the time when Titanic was released. It's not like the average household income has increased since then either.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.