‘Avatar’ sales reach the sky
We all saw it coming, but it’s still impressive that it happened so quickly. Only six weeks after release, “Avatar” is now the highest grossing film ever. It took “Titanic” 10 months to reach that spot. But hey, James Cameron is still the money-makingest director pretty much of all time, so he isn’t going to be needing same day payday loans any time soon,
As of yesterday, “Avatar” had made $ 1.86 billion, compared with “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 record for most tickets sold, and it completely blows “Avatar” out of the water.
“Gone with the Wind” sold 202 million tickets, and “Avatar” pales with a paltry 76 million. Obviously, the fact that Gone with the Wind is still around after 70 years, and occasionally still screened in theaters helps its numbers a bit. Also, take into account that “Gone with the Wind” came out in an era where people didn’t have the kind of choice we do today when it comes to entertainment.
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.
There’s one more hurdle Avatar has to pass, though. 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.