1/27 | The timbers of Titanic’s box office records are shivered by Avatar
‘Avatar’ sales reach the sky
We all saw it coming, but it’s still impressive that it happened so quickly. Just six weeks after its release, “Avatar” is the highest-grossing film of all time. It took “Titanic” 10 months to reach that spot. But hey, James Cameron is still the money-makingest director, so he isn’t going to be needing same day payday loans any time soon,
As of yesterday, “Avatar” had made $ 1.86 billion worldwide, compared to “Titanic’s” $ 1.84 billion all told. Currently, “Avatar” is still raking in about $ 2 million per day on weekdays, so it has lots of time to add a little more cushion to that record.
Revisionist history
Though “Avatar”is easily in the position of making the most money, the not-so-impressive part is that there is simply more money to be made nowadays because of ticket prices. “Gone with the Wind” has the records for most tickets sold, and it leaves “Avatar” in the dust by far.
“Gone with the Wind” sold a ridiculous 202 million tickets, while “Avatar” has only sold 76 million. Of course, the fact that “Gone with the Wind” has been around for 70 years and re-shown in theaters periodically helps pad its number quite a bit. Also, when “Gone with the Wind” came out, people didn’t have nearly the selection to choose from that we have now.
Runners-up
The third highest-grossing film after “Avatar” and “Titanic” is “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” with $ 1.12 billion. Fourth on the list is “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” with a haul of $ 1.07 billion, fifth goes to “The Dark Knight” with $ 1 billion.
“Avatar” still has one milestone to pass, however. Though it doesn’t hold the worldwide record for grosses, “Titanic” still holds the record in the U.S. sales, grossing about $ 600 million. “Avatar” will need to sell another $ 45 million to catch up.