Last night on another scintillating episode of Reject Radio, special guest co-host John Gholson and I addressed a fascinating trend that seems to be happening with the drop-off rate of returns on the Avatar box office. Notably, that there’s barely been any drop off.
According to Box Office Mojo, the flick opened to $77 million and only lost 1.8% the next weekend (with a gain of $75.6 million) and only a subsequent drop of 9.4% the following weekend (with $68.4 million more).
Compare that to another event movie – Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen’s opening of $108.9 million. Impressive, until you consider that it took a dive by 61.2% the next weekend to take in $42.3 million. For those keeping score, I would mention that Avatar made essentially the same two-week total that Fallen did, but that doesn’t really matter considering that the blue-aliened beast already destroy the Baygasm internationally, and is currently sitting in the 5-spot for overall, all-time international gross.
The top spot is held, of course, by Titanic.
Which calls for an infographic.
AVATAR
TITANIC
Shown above are the tracking shots for both Cameron-directed films. Of course, this is just domestic, it doesn’t account for inflation, and there’s most likely no way that Avatar will last the same 41 weeks at the box office that Titanic did, but the thing is tracking hard and fast, gunning for that number one spot.
In order to do so, the film would have to leap past both Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King as well as the whopping $1.84 Billion earned by Titanic. It currently boasts $1.02 Billion worldwide.
So everybody start the countdown with me. If Avatar makes a nickel over $817,500,994 during its remaining lifespan at the box office, it’s officially beaten the champ. Cameron will have beaten himself.
That’s still a long way to go, but if the next few weekends hold steady, it we could very well have an underdog upset on our hands.
While FSR does not condone gambling of any kind (that does not involve you somehow ending up playing a game of Chicken in your underwear with an oncoming train), this is the sort of thing that you movie nerds should totally salivate over – especially if a few bucks (or your honor) is on the line.
Personally, I’m still convinced Big Momma’s House 2 has a shot at the big game internationally. That’s where the smart money is at.
What do you think?
Source: Box Office Mojo
Related Topics: Avatar
