Meanwhile Avatar clocked $6,909,167 in domestic Box Office Gross, bringing its domestic total to $374,445,852 after twenty days in release.  Titanic, at the 20 day mark, stood at $166M and it was February 16 before Titanic reached $374,445,852.  It seems that Avatar should be able to catch Titanic at 600M domestic gross even if it does not. in the end,  have to have quite the same type of phenomenal legs that  Titanic did.

See the chart below for details.  Click to enlarge.

Tuesday’s foreign box office numbers are in, and James Cameron’s Avatar continues to move up the all-time worldwide box office chart, passing Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and landing in the number 3 position with $1.1B behind Lord of the Rings: Return of the King ($1.19B) and Titanic ($1.8B).  It’s inevitable that after Wednesday’s numbers come out, Avatar will be in the number 2 position since only $20m separates it from #2 LOTR: Return of the King.

Meanwhile, as Avatar’s 4th Weekend looms, the Cameron pic has now entered into territory where, for the next 7 weeks, the mark for all-time highest weekend (i.e. 4th weekend, 5th weekend, etc) is held by Titanic.  Avatar seems a stone cold lock to beat Titanic’s “Best All Time Fourth Weekend”, which is $28m (Avatar is coming off of $68m weekend and should easily beat $28m).

Avatar also continued to extend it’s lead over TItanic on a ‘same number of days in release’ basis — with that lead now standing at $199m after 18 days in release for each film.   See the following chart for the full layout:

The following chart is the one I’ve published previously which asks “what if?” Avatar were have the same legs as Titanic — how high could it go.  What’s significant about Monday (see yellow shaded row) is that, because Titanic actually dropped 66% as opposed to 53.4% for Avatar, you can see an increase in Avatar’s “what if” projected final gross.  I want to stress — no one, least of all yours truly, is projecting that Avatar can go on as long and as productively as Titanic, but what the figure of $1+B shows is just how much of a lead Avatar has on Titanic — a lead that should shrink as Titanic’s phenomenal ‘legs’ begin to come into play.  But it is interesting and significant that this far downstream, on day 18, Avatar actually gained against Titanic in every measure.

Finally — it’s worth noting that all other films out on Monday dropped in the 60-0% range, and it’s also worth noting that Avatar claimed a whopping 44% of the total Monday Box Office Gross for all films of $18m.

Avatar grossed $68.3 million in its third weekend, dropping just under 10% from its previous weekend. It’s the biggest third-weekend of all time, clobbering Spider-Man’s $45 million third-weekend gross. If this were Avatar’s second weekend, it would be the fifth-biggest second weekend of all time. If this were Avatar’s opening weekend, it would be the forty-second biggest opening weekend of all time (and it would likely remain 2010′s top opening until May). On its own, it’s the biggest weekend in January history, clobbering the $40 million Fri-Sun take of Cloverfield. In just 17 days, the James Cameron sci-fi epic has amassed $350 million in the US alone. Only The Dark Knight crossed that mark faster, in just fourteen days. Global numbers, well that’s another story. There are now five movies that have amassed over $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. The previous speed record-holder, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, did it in about two months. The Dark Knight took several months and a re-release timed to coincide with Oscar nominations that never happened. Avatar just crossed that threshold in seventeen days. In just two-and-a-half weeks, Avatar is the fourth-highest grossing film of all time worldwide.

Read the whole post here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-mendelson/avatar-crashes-burns-in-t_b_409843.html

And here is an interesting “What If?” chart.  It takes Titanic’s daily cum gross and divides that number into Titanic’s actual final gross — arriving at a percentage of that final gross achieved as of a particular day.  Thus for example, Titanic’s opening day gross of $8.8m ended up being 1.44% of it’s final gross of $600m.  And through 17 days, Titanic’s cum 17 day gross of $157m turned out to be 26% of it’s final gross.

So the “What if” question is — “What if Avatar’s daily cum gross turned out to be the same percentage of its final gross as Titanic’s?”  To measure this, the chart takes the actual Titanic figure computing how much of the total had been achieved by a given day, and supplies that to Avatar — then multiplies it out.  The result is interesting and indicative in two ways.  First, it shows just how great Titanic’s legs were — since if Avatar were to perform like Titanic, then it means its on its way to an unfathomable 1.3Billion in the US.  Secondly, it is a way of tracking how Avatar is doing, day to day, in “keeping up” with Titanic.  By using the Titanic actual figure for “percentage of final” — it forces Avatar to “keep up:” with Titanic or else it’s final gross as predicted by this equation will fall. (click to enlarge)

This means that Avatar has racked up the following records over the New Year’s Weekend:

• #1 All Time New Year’s Eve Gross
• #1 All Time  Third Friday Gross
• #1 All Time New Year’s Day Gross

This brings Avatar’s total US Domestic Gross to $352.1M in 17 days.

This means a second full week BO of $146,717,023, compared to first full week of $137,094,051 — a 7% increase in the second week, which is extroardinary.

Most films soften from Dec 30 to 31.  Presumably people have things to do on New Years Eve.  But some films improve or hold even, so it’s not impossible.  This bears watching.

UPDATE AT 3:14PM PST

I did some roaming around Box Office Mojo and came up with one bit of interesting information that should give Avatar fans some reason to feel good about the BOG for 31 Dec.

The following chart shows the entire box office gross for each day of the last week, then Avatar’s gross, and finally Avatar’s share.  It shows that even though Avatar’s gross number went down from 18 to 14.9, Avatar’s share of the overall box office went up.  So it would seem that the “New Years Eve” factor was definitely at work yesterday.

UPDATE — JAN 2, 3PM

Just noticed on Box Office Mojo that Avatar’s performance on 31 Dec was the all-time top New Years Eve gross, so I guess it’s better than I thought it was.  Still waiting for Jan 1 figures.

So, here’s a chart showing some of the other movies I looked at — and Avatar, with my prediction in blue.

We’ll see.

Here it is in its entirety — remember it was written on opening day:

According to various online sources, James Cameron’s Avatar made $27 million at the domestic box office on Friday. (That figure includes the $3.5 million the 3D futuristic epic earned at midnight showings Thursday night.)

Sounds impressive? Well, it is. Cameron’s prior blockeviscerating epic, Titanic, made a mere $28.6 million on its opening weekend.

Sounds unimpressive for little Titanic? Well, think again. Ticket prices are now considerably higher than they were 12 years ago — $4.59 vs. $7.18 last year as per the National Association of Theater Owners. In other words, had Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet gone down with the ship (well, one of them did) late last year, Titanic’s first-weekend take would have been $44.7 million. Add a few more millions to that number and you’ll get box-office figures to match late 2009’s higher ticket prices. Also, it’s worth noting that Avatar tickets are even costlier for IMAX and 3D screenings, where most of its box-office take has been generated.

Putting things into better perspective: Avatar’s $27 million is nothing to sniff at, but thanks to Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart’s on-screen chemistry, Chris Weitz’s The Twilight Saga: New Moon grossed $72 million on its first Friday a few weeks ago. Not far behind, Michael Bay’s special-effects-laden Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made $62 million on its first Wednesday.

Even if you factor in that both New Moon and Revenge of the Fallen may have opened in more theaters than Avatar and had shorter running times, that’s still quite a discrepancy.

Another big discrepancy is the one between Avatar and its current competition. According to early estimates, no other movie made more than $3.4 million on Friday, which is what Disney’s The Princess and the Frog earned at the number two spot. Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side took in $3.1 million, the much-panned Hugh Grant-Sarah Jessica Parker comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans? debuted at fourth with $2.4 million, while Pattinson and Stewart (and Taylor Lautner) are still hanging in there, with The Twilight Saga: New Moon in fifth with $1.4 million.

So I sent a comment in as follows:

Michelle,
I realize you wrote on this opening day. And you’re absolutely right that ticket prices are higher now, and that’s an advantage for Avatar. That said — do you have any further comment now — 12 days in? Avatar stands at 250m compared to 104m for Titanic after 12 days. Unlike virtually all megablockbusters which drop 40-50% in their second weekend, Avatar only dropped from 77m to 75.6m in its second weekend, and its second full week will be 10% or more ahead of its first full week — very ‘Titanic-like’ in terms of trends.

And Michelle graciously wrote back:

Michael,
Thanks for writing.
I’d say that AVATAR will be around for quite a while…
Now, the best way to compare the two films at this point would be to know how many tickets each of them sold. Also, it’s good to remember that TITANIC was initially shown in “only” 2,614 screens vs. 3,452 for AVATAR. That’s a huge difference. TITANIC’s widest release, according to Box Office Mojo, was in 3,265 screens.
Also, TITANIC has a 3hr15m running time, so it’s more than half an hour longer than AVATAR. Back in 1998, did that mean fewer screenings per day? That’s something else worth considering.
Check out:

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=titanic.htm

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=avatar.htm

I’ve decided to put my reply here because this is an interesting topic and I want to be able to discuss in more detail than would be appropriate in a comments section.

First of all it’s interesting that we’re even having this discussion because when Avatar first came out, few thought it could catch Titanic even without making adjustements for inflation and tickets — $600m just seemed too high and too many films with bigger opening grosses than Avatar had fallen by the wayside.  Indeed, I Am Legend, the previous top December opener with $77m and finished at $256m.  The Number 2 All Time, Dark Knight (a summer release) opened at $140m and wound up at $533m.  So at that point $600m by itself, unadjusted, seemed out of reach to those who were just looking at the opening weekend gross.

Now, 12 days into it, the $600m mark seems likely to fall and so I think it’s useful to discuss the ticket price and inflation adjustment because I believe those are legitimate issues.  But before I do that, I want to comment on Michelle’s assertion that we should consider the number of screens.  I would respectfully disagree with this.  Screen count is generally a strategic decision.  Titanic had 3,000 plus screens available (it expanded to 3,265 as Michelle points out) but the decision was made — a wise one, as it turns out — to start at a smaller initial screen count.  Dark Knight had over 4,000 initial screens — and it fell short.  So I don’t really think there’s any basis for adjusting the results based upon screen count.  Also, I would say that I don’t agree that running time should be considered, as this too is a strategic decision.  And Titanic at 3 hours and 15 minuts is 35 minutes longer than Avatar at 2 hours 40 minutes, not ‘almost an hour’.  But these are just quibbles.  Let’s get on to the meat of the discussion — adjustment for inflation and ticket prices.

Michelle correctly points out the difference in average ticket prices from 1997 to today, but it’s not enough to just look at that if you’re going to make an adjustment.  You also need to consider inflation, which narrows the gap considerably.  A dollar in 1997 bought more than a dollar in 2009, so the $4.56 average ticket price in 1997 must be adjusted for inflation to begin the analysis and make it “fair” to both sides of the discussion.

With this in mind, I ‘did the math’ on this and the chart below shows what I came up with: (click to see enlarge)

So — even with the adjustment Avatar retains its lead, but the lead is smaller and the challenge to stay ahead of the Titanic ‘tortoise’ is greater.   I think as this goes on, as it becomes more clear that Avatar will surpass $600m, I think the conversation will shift toward these kind of adjusted figures and I have no problem with that.

I think that the larger issue here that I want to clarify is that I’m not in the least antagonistic toward Titanic.  Like everyone else I’ve been in awe of Titanic’s performance — not just it’s total, but it’s staying power and its ability to elicit repeat viewings.  My point has generally been more about the fact that at the beginning, people were slow to recognize that Avatar, right from the beginning showed signs of having Titanic-like legs.  It was there to be noticed right from the first weekend, when the Sunday drop was less than normal, and the weekend tally had to be upgraded from 73m to 77m in because of the exceptionally strong Sunday performance.  Then coming off a Sunday surge, the Monday dropoff was also less than expected.  Add to this the incredibly high user ratings at places like Box Office Mojo (where Avatar has the #2 All-time rating and Titanic is not in the top 100) and IMDB, where Avatar is rated 8.8 to 7.3 for Titanic — and I think it was pretty clear that, as Michelle says, “Avatar will be around for a long time”.  Yet during that second week when all this evidence was gathering, I didn’t see a lot of people recognizing it or writing about it.

I think the other thing that may be getting lost in this discussion is that Titanic and Avatar have one thing in common with each other that can only be said of about 6 films — and that is that they are the cinematic offspring of James Cameron. They are brother and sister films, and if here’s a rivalry between the two — it’s a sibling rivalry in which what binds them and their proponents together is far greater than what separates them.  And we’re all winners in this debate because we’ve got two terrific films to enjoy, over and over again, and plenty of water cooler discussion to boot.