Cinema Soldier

Avatar has passed yet another milestone. Last week it passed Titanic to become the highest grossing movie of all time–Titanic had about $1.84 billion in sales). As of today, it is the first movie to gross $2 billion dollars around the world, taking in an estimated $2,039,222,000 through the weekend. More importantly, the movie shows no signs of slowing.

Interestingly, I saw an article on The Hollywood Reporter, saying Avatar is actually the #26 highest movie if we dismiss box office gross and instead count ticket sales. Under that model, Gone with the Wind and Star Wars are the most popular movies of all time, followed by The Sound of Music and E.T. The Extraterrestrial. My thoughts on counting ticket sales instead of dollars grossed and the misleading nature of this article can be found at Filmonic.

Read the rest of my article here...

I previously reported that James Cameron's Avatar might sink Titanic as the top grossing film of all time. Well, some time has passed and it looks like this will happen. After five straight weeks on top of the box office (and probably a sixth right now) Avatar is getting extremely close to dethroning Titanic in both domestic and worldwide box office grosses. Here are the current totals.

Domestic (U.S.)

1. Titanic - $600,788,188
2. The Dark Knight - $533,345,358
3. Avatar - $525,947,000

By the end of the weekend, Avatar will beat out The Dark Knight and become the second highest grossing domestic release of all time, if it hasn't already. Within a week to a week and a half, it should edge out Titanic. 

Worldwide

1. Titanic - $1.8429 billion
2. Avatar - $1.6988 billion

Worldwide, only $144.1 million now separates the two films, a sum that shouldn't take the Na'vi long to meet. If current trends hold, Avatar will likely rake in somewhere from $40-$60 million this weekend in the U.S. alone. Assuming it pulls in twice that worldwide (69% of its current take comes from abroad) it could beat Titanic in the next few days. At most, it could take a week. 

Avatar could become the first $2 billion dollar movie before this is all said and done.