'Wonderland' Apparently Full of Money

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland blew away already high expectations, coming in with a total of $116 million domestically in its opening weekend and $210 million worldwide.  It came in as the sixth highest grossing opening weekend of all time, and easily took the record for largest opening weekend in the first quarter of the year.  Given its family-friendly nature, broadly popular subject matter, strong marketing, 3-D "wow" factor and Johnny Depp and Tim Burton's star power, the film should hold over well in the weekends to come, at least until such time as its 3-D screens are taken away for other, newer, films.

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Competition 'Shutter'ed Out Again

Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island blocked newcomers Cop Out and The Crazies from the top spot at the box office this past weekend.  Shutter Island rode a wave of good word of mouth, dropping a respectable 46% in the face of bad weather on the Eastern portion of the continent to a tally of $22.2 million in its second weekend.  The film has earned $75 million to date.

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Avatar Knocked Off Its Perch

Hit by a reduced audience because of the Superbowl and some creative Superbowl counter-programming on the part of estrogen-fest Dear John (which grossed an estimated $32.4M, the highest gross ever during the Superbowl weekend), Avatar has finally fallen from the #1 spot on the box office chart in its eighth weekend.  While the film's incredible box office run is certainly far from over, it won't have a shot at one of Titanic's few remaining box office records, most consecutive weeks at #1 (Titanic's record is 15 weeks).

It is worth noting, however, that 47 days into Avatar's run, Titanic's all-time domestic box office gross has now been defeated.  Avatar now holds the record for domestic, international and worldwide grosses.  Inflation-adjusted is a completely different picture, of course, but the reality is that only two months ago, many people wondered if Avatar would ever be able to turn a profit.  Now the only question is how long do audiences have to wait for the inevitable sequels?

Avatar Takes The Crown

James Cameron's Avatar has done what seemed impossible, and is now the highest grossing film of all time worldwide (not adjusted for inflation).  This is after a mere 6 weeks in theatres, and with no end in sight at this time.

Avatar's total domestic gross looks like it'll come in around $750 Million (it has amassed $555 Million so far, rapidly approaching Titanic's $600 Million domestic total), and as much as $2 Billion overseas.  If the current pace continues, Avatar could gross as much as $3 Billion globally, making it the highest grossing film of all time regardless of whether inflation is taken into consideration. 

Adjusted for inflation, Avatar's domestic gross is currently 26th, and if the $750 Million projection above comes true, it will land at #11 on the all-time domestic grosses, adjusted for inflation. 

When ticket price increases are taken into consideration, the most attended film of all time in domestic terms remains 1939's Gone With the Wind, which grossed an estimated $1.5 Billion in domestic tickets sales over the course of several releases.  Of course Gone With the Wind didn't have to contend with television, video games, or any of the other multitudes of entertainment available to audiences today.  Globally, the world has not seen anything like Avatar since Titanic in 1997.

Another Week at the Top for Avatar

After another stellar weekend, Avatar managed to come up on top for the fifth weekend in a row.  Avatar managed to beat the new upstart, Denzel Washington's Book of Eli, to come out on top once again.  Total Avatar grosses for the weekend were approximately $41.3 Million, while Eli came in second at $31.6 Million.

The Book of Eli managed to beat Avatar on Friday night, but a large bump in Avatar's Saturday grosses allowed it to accelerate and maintain the lead through the rest of the weekend.  James Cameron's latest film is set to pass The Dark Knight as the second highest grossing film domestically sometime in the next week.  It's also now only $240 Million shy of topping Titanic as the highest grossing film worldwide of all time, a feat that seemed unimaginable only six weeks ago.

Avatar's grosses will only be helped by two major Golden Globe wins on Sunday night, including Best Picture (Drama) and Best Director (James Cameron).  The Globes typically act as a good predictor for Academy Award nominations, so when Avatar's inevtiable Best Picture nomination comes in, its already spectacular run will get another little boost.

Oh, and, as appears to be the norm for Avatar thus far, its fifth weekend out was also the highest grossing fifth weekend of all time, topping Titanics $30 Million gross from 12 years ago.  Avatar's pace has now outstripped The Dark Knight, as well.  The last Batman film had grossed (a mere) $471 Million domestically by the end of its fifth weekend, as compared to Avatar's $491 Million gross to date.

It'll be interesting to see where this thing tops out.