And Into Second Place

Avatar took second place at the global box office on Wednesday, earning $1.13 Billion in 20 days of release.  That's an average of $56.5M per day.  It'll take another $700 Million to pass Titanic, so the boat still has some distance on James Cameron's latest epic.

Avatar's earnings are coming at quite a bit faster pace than Titanic.  Box Office Mojo shows Titanic at $166 Million on day 20, whereas Avatar has doubled that pace with $374M in domestic grosses over the same period of time.  Titanic's $600 Million domestic gross was earned over a staggering 287 days in theatres.  It's unlikely that Avatar will still be playing on the big screen in October, but at this point, anything is possible.

The Dark Knight, which earned $533 Million during its domestic run, had done $410 Million (77% of total gross) in business by day 20.  TDK started bigger, with the largest opening weekend of all time, but did not hold over as well week-over-week as Avatar has thus far.

3-D continues to be the big playing factor, with approximately 80% of the gross coming from digital 3D and IMAX 3-D screens.  This helps the grosses, obviously, due to the premium price of the tickets. 

Avatar receives some competition this weekend with Daybreakers and Youth In Revolt, but shouldn't have any difficulty retaining the top spot from the two upstarts.  Daybreakers is the wild card, with a premise that appeals to a young audience and would typically result in a big opening weekend.  The R rating will likely keep the grosses well behind Avatar, though, which is a more friendly PG-13 and is appealing to a broader spectrum of movie patrons.