Avatar has officially become the highest-grossing domestic box office movie ever, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The James Cameron-directed 3D epic now clocks in at $601.1 million, surpassing Cameron’s 1998 movie Titanic, which racked up $600.8 million. Avatar’s international tally comes to $1.48 billion for a total cume of $2.08 billion. That total is padded by extra charges for 3D tickets as well as the higher ticket prices now compared to 1998. Gone With the Wind, however, still remains the highest ticket-seller of all time.
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Considering I paid almost twice what I paid to Titanic to watch Avatar, I don’t think that’s such a feat.
I think the movie was groundbreaking but sorta like Spam (no meat).
Then again Titanic really didn’t start working for me until the ship started sinking.
Cameron came up with the plot for Terminator, I’d like to see him back at that level of creativity rather than rehashing Dances With Wolves and Romeo and Juliet.
It’s smart business. They got you to pay twice as much.
A V A T A R – 47 days in theaters so far.
T I T A N I C – 287 days in theaters total.
titstanic is the best movie
well, Cameron didn’t come up with terminator, he ripped off the idea and plot from harlan Ellison and even lost a lawsuit over it. Thats cameron’s level of creativity.
I always find it funny when armchair critics sit down and take aim at other people’s lack of creativity. Instead of posting comments, go make a movie and see how that goes. Just saying …
Cameron didn’t “lose” a lawsuit to Harlan Ellison. And if you actually look at the two Twilight Zone episodes from which the alleged infringement occurs, it’s quite a stretch to say Cameron plagiarized. Charitably you might say Terminator was “inspired by” a lot of things, including the works of Harlan Ellison. Philip K. Dick and others could argue their works might have inspired elements of the script. Harlan Ellison, while very talented, is also known as a lawsuit-happy person who loves publicity. The producers figured a simple settlement — with “acknowledgment to the works of” in the credits and some cash was the best way to make the problem go away. They NEVER admitted anything close to Cameron ripping off Ellison, nor did they lose a lawsuit over it.
Whatever idea Ellison had he obviously couldn’t sell, perhaps because so few people want to put up with his antics. Cameron may have grafted onto Ellison’s ideas (a statement which I have seen no proof of outside of this claim) but there is no questioning the end results. Poor Harlan. Everyone is always cheating the poor guy. Waaaaahhh!
Actually, Cameron came up with The Terminator on his own and lost one of those unfair 80’s lawsuits (remember when the biggest hits were always sued for plagiarism… Ask Spielberg). The lawsuit was completely BS as The Terminator’s revised credit only mention “acknowledgement to the works of Harlan Ellison”. To me, that looks like something to keep him quiet.
It’s better than what your pea brain can come up with. I’m surprised you even remember to wipe your butt after every bathroom break, dummy.
How come people are soo quick to point out inflation with this milestone but never as quick to point out that Avatar made the money it did in less then half the time it took Titanic to make as much… i hate to break it to you but that is a pretty important factor in the equation!
Because the reason it took half the time to beat titanic is because of inflation and higher ticket costs. Would it have crossed titanic’s record if it was only selling tickets for $4.00? No… That’s why no one brings it up.
Ah, but when all is said and done, once Avatar has been out for eight months like Titanic was, what will it have made? Perhaps enough to offset whatever gains it made in extra ticket prices.
Point is, there’s a BIG chunk of cash left in Avatar’s engine. Its Oscar nominations caused a 45% boost in online ticketing!
Zach does have a good point. If Avatar’s momentum keeps up it could certainly top Titanic any way you want to slice it. But factoring in inflation…will never be #1 over GWTW in this day and age of DVDs, etc. Still mighty impressive. Those who champion the film’s money making should be satisfied with what it has achieved. It doesn’t have to be, and won’t be, the biggest grossing film of all time with inflation figured in. And you know, that’s o.k. It’s still a mighty impressive performance and is drawing people into the theatres again — to me that is its greatest achievement.
How long can we all go without name calling each other over this movie? Please no “Avatard” etc. like language. It makes me sad to see so many smart and lovely people devolve into knee-jerkers.
I prefer calling it the Avaturd. I am honestly baffled at all the attention and admiration being heaped onto this movie. I’m not putting down the people who think it’s God’s answer to movies, but it’s just not a good movie. At all.
That’s cool. I really enjoyed the movie. I’m planning on seeing it again.
i’ve given up on you guys here!! oh well lucky me there are sites like boxofficemojo.com where people do appreciate what avatar has achieved here,and there are some over there who dont like it but they at least give decent reasons why backed up by facts, charts without feeling the need to put down those who like it
Obviously it cost you less to watch a movie 10 years ago. It also cost you less to get your coffee and bagel or hire an escort if you want to adjust that for inflation as well. The bottom line is since Titanic no movie has been able to match its success, let alone exceed it, regardless of the inflation-adjusted metric you are alluding to. So just appreciate it for what it’s worth. Meantime, you can still argue why other classics like Gone with the Wind made more money than Avatar in terms of real dollar value until we’re all 6 feet under
Also, we had a lot fewer entertainment options 10 years ago. There was no netflix, no youtube, all that stuff that now competes for our entertainment budgets and time. I think it’s am amazing feat that, in this day and age, a movie got that many people to pay for a higher ticket price, and to go more than once.
Totally agreed. It’s no mystery why movies have shorter shelf lives now. Amid all the Avatar bashing I see, people still don’t notice that it’s been, what, since Titanic, that we saw a movie top the box office for nearly 2 months. In this day and age of multiple distractions and ADD-esque attention spans, it’s quite a feat.
When i saw the previews i thought “this looks gay” lol.havent seen it dont plan on seeing it. Still looks stupid.i dont see why its such a success
Maybe if you, uh, saw it before judging it, you’d have an idea? If people see the movie and don’t like it, more power to them. But I have to roll my eyes at the “Look, I haven’t seen Avatar and think it looks gay (does anyone even still use that term; how old are you, 12?), look how cool and anti-establishment I am!” attitude some people have.
lol omg i’m like, so glad you clicked and commented on an article about a movie you think is gay.
Wow… well Kristen… I did see it and I didn’t notice any male navi-on-male navi action. SO I CAN CONFIRM THE MOVIE ISN’T GAY.
Just go and see it then u will understand why it is the greatest movie ever by whatever count,
I’ve read a lot of comments about Avatar, but “looks gay”?! Avatar, gay? Now, “300″, that looked gay. Unless you’ve got a new definition of “gay”, you’ve managed to squeeze an astonishing conclusion out of a preview. And why see it? Try: state-of-the-art photography.
Problem is even at its current sales Avatar is only like the 26th highest ticket selling movie. Problem people have is with the super inflated ticket pricing cause of 3d. My theater charges almost double the money for 3d movies. Remove around 200 million for the total cause that is about what the markup for it being in 3d is bloating it by. Now when it hits 800-900 million then I will consider it beating titanic. Cause at that point the mark up for the glasses will be a mute point.
That doesn’t make sense. Why use Titanic as the baseline for success when Gone with the Wind had a higher gross when you adjust for inflation? Your theory doesn’t jive
GWTW needed 10 years and 4 releases to approach what Avatar and Titanic have made even adjusted for inflation. From DEC 1939 to March 1942 52 million people saw GWTW.
It’s actually at #21 now. Try to keep up. If it keeps its hold and gets an Oscar boost (Fandango reported a boost in ticket sales after yesterday’s nominations), it COULD crack the top 10 adjusted. COULD.
I’ll also point out that HALF of the current top 10 adjusted films were released MULTIPLE TIMES, including Gone With the Wind, E.T. and Star Wars. Are they “cheaters” too?
Exactly! People need to stop complaining and realize that all of the films that sold the most tickets were all technically ‘cheaters’, too! GWTW, E.T., Star Wars were all re-released mutliple times. Titanic was out for a whole year. It is just about physically impossible to make a real list of the highest-grossing films/highest ticket selling films.
If it was so easy to make a movie that could gross $2B worldwide, or $600M US, Why has noone else done it?
What has been funny is Hollywood’s rush to turn out as many 3D films as they can, in hopes of capturing some of that Avatar magic. I suspect that they are going to be disappointed. There is more than technology involved in this film’s success.
I really enjoy Avatar 3D but $11 as a senior citizen is a lot of money. Movie prices in the midwest have jumped to California levels in just the last year. It was only 15 months ago, I could see any movie for $6 and now it is $10. That is one huge jump in such a short time period. I have only gone to movie a couple times in that period and probably will continue to stay away at the prices they charge.
Good thing you don’t live in NYC like me. Try $18.50 for IMAX or $16.50 for standard 3D. That, not counting any snacks you want to buy.
I still think movie prices aren’t so bad when you compare them to what it costs to see a top artist in concert. I could see Avatar (or any movie) a half dozen times and more and still spend less than what it costs to spend 90 minutes “seeing” someone “hot” in concert at a great distance. All things considered you still get a good entertainment bang for your buck with movies.
Well, it is true that Avatar’s tickets had to be at least twice what Titanic’s were and I doubt any movie will beat Gone With the Wind’s ticket sales. However, I think Avatar deserves the acclaim, considering the film (action-based as opposed to an acting-based movie like Titanic) it was sure fantastic and I’m going to see it again before its out of theaters.
Technically, if you take inflation into account, Titanic’s record of $600.8 billion in 1998 is equal to $790.7 billion in 2009, so Avatar is still $189.6 billion short. Check out the inflation calculator at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics…
Correction: Technically, if you take inflation into account, Titanic’s record of $600.8 million in 1998 is equal to $790.7 million in 2009, so Avatar is still $189.6 million short. Check out the inflation calculator at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics…
Well adjusted for inflation Gone With the Wind has a tross of $1.5T in today’s money from 1939. Star Wars has a gross of $1.3T in today’s money. Sound of Music and ET are at $1.0T respectively … so you get the picture. Again, if you’re talking absolute numbers, Avatar is #1, if you’re talking today’s money, it’s a different story. But I think the real story is the fact in this current age of movies and everything else (internet etc) the fact it can keep people’s attention for this long is an achievement in of itself.
Those movies you mentioned were released several times in different years as people always fail to mention. They made a lot of money but it was over time with the re-releases, so you cannot really compare them to movies today because it is not likely to happen with newer movies thanks to the advancing home movie systems and the internet.
OMG… FINALLY… I always feel like I am the only one who points out that Gone With The Wind’s total is padded with its multiple re-releases.
I wish they would take DVD sales and other ancilliary markets into account when calculating total gross. Considering the VHS / Laser Disk / DVD / TV market re-releases, I suspect Star Wars would be the #1 movie of all time.
Over the time of its first release in 1939 and second release in 1941 GWTW made $388m adjusted for ticket price inflation.
Really? Is that all?? It made over a trillion dollars in subsequent re-releases over the years?!?!
An interesting point made on E!Online:
” For those who continue to insist Avatar’s success is a figment of IMAX prices, two remarkable things: (1) the movie is playing like movies of this era are not supposed to play—roughly the same number of people make the pilgrimage to see it week in, week out; and, (2) even on Box Office Mojo’s handy adjusted-for-inflation chart, it is the highest-grossing movie of the 2000s, and the sixth highest-grossing movie of the VHS/DVD era, which we’re going to arbitrarily declare as anything released in 1982 or after.”
The box office gross of movies released prior to the mid 70’s(release of Jaws) are based on estimates. Only studio rentals were tracked. Some films could be out by many millions of admissions.
Amazing to think that Gone With The Wind has only had 70 years and 3 re-releases to stack up that gross. And they did it in an era without TV, DVD’s, Netflix, TiVo, and only two theaters in most towns. You can’t compare because – well, you can’t compare.
well, obviously there was nothing else to do then… you also gotta give Avatar credit for getting people in this economy to shell out all that extra money for 3D and bloated ticket prices.
Not that I lived then, but sad to see this comment that “there was nothing else to do then.” Do you honestly think people had both time and money to devote on trivial matters as theater attendance? Granted there are more entertainment options now than there were then, but times were different then for many reasonns. Far too many to list here, just check your history books (oops, I mean, kindle). Suffice it to say there was a lot to do then, far more than you’ll ever be asked to do, and more than you’re likely to experience, in your life. Lack of internet and television in ‘39 did not mean people lacked for other options to spend their leisure time.
oh, as a footnote, I like Avatar and am impressed by its achievements, both in making money and being entertaining. so please don’t assume my previous post is due to disliking the film or its achievements.
GWTW was First released in DEC 1939. It was released again in 1941,1942,1947,1954,1961,1967,1974,1989 and finally in 1998. As a measure of its enduring popularity it was only seen by 2 million people over the 1989 and 1998 releases.
When it was first released the theatres were probably charging fifty cents to go see it.