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Box office: 'Avatar' holds off 'Book of Eli'
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"Avatar" remained king of the box-office world for the fifth straight week, holding off "The Book of Eli" for top spot.James Cameron's movie raked in an additional $41.3 million for the weekend of Jan. 15-17, based on studio estimates. Its total take is now above $490 million domestically, which ranks third all-time at the domestic box office, behind only "Titanic" and "The Dark Knight." (Adjusting for inflation, "Gone with the Wind" remains the all-time champ.)
"The Book of Eli," which led Friday's returns with $11.7 million, ended the weekend with $31.6 million. "The Lovely Bones" shot up to third as it expanded from three screens to more than 2,500, earning $17.06 million. "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" ($11.5 million) and "Sherlock Holmes" ($9.8 million) rounded out the top five. The weekend's other wide release, "The Spy Next Door," was sixth with $9.7 million.
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Box office: 'Avatar' four-peats
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox
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Darnit! But of course, it's going to beat it when its charging double the ticket prices because its being shown in 3-D and IMAX. That's the only reason its #1 and if it somehow ends up knocking Titanic out of the top spot then it won't be a legitimate #1 because of the "jacked up" ticket prices.
And this article explains why I said the above ... http://insidemovies.moviefone.com/2010/01/12/why-avatar-might-not-be-as-successful-as-youd-think/?icid=main|compaq-desktop|dl2|link3|http%3A%2F%2Finsidemovies.moviefone.com%2F2010%2F01%2F12%2Fwhy-avatar-might-not-be-as-successful-as-youd-think%2F
Lee, not to take anything away from Avatar, which is a great film, but you are absolutely right. It's like sanctioning a ball player to play on steroids. Does the new record really count?
To both Anonymous and Lee, do you people remember back in 1998 when Titanic became the "highest grossing" movie? People were saying the same thing about Titanic, that because of the "jacked up" ticket prices, it passed movies like Star Wars, Gone With The Wind, E.T., etc. When you adjust for all that, and count the number of tickets sold, Titanic is not even in the top 5! Look it up if you don't believe me, boxofficemojo has a nice link to it (and I purposely named them, because that's the source to this article).
Are you serious?
Double the price?
If somebody sold you an IMAX or 3-D ticket that was "double the price" then you got swindled.
It's only at maximum 7 dolars more give or take.
Avatar is making money..it is nobody's business to question where the money is coming from.
Because if you want to play the "it only did this much money because" card then "Gone with the wind only made that much money because back then there were around 14000 cinemas compared to today's roughly 5000 in the USA (combined with the fact that over half of the country's population went to the movies every weekend) and no internet to gently pirate the movie.
Just sayin..
Of course Gone with the Wind will always be number one. Remember, back when it was released there was no way to see the movie outside theatres. There was no tv, no vcrs, no dvd players etc. So in order for people to see the movie they HAD to see it in the theatre. Therefore, movie theatre runs for films were much longer, sometimes movies were in theatres for years at a time.
Okay, so I did some checking and at one theater I found the following:
Regular Avatar ticket for evening show - $10.50/adult
3-D Avatar ticket for evening show - $11.50/adult
3-D IMAX Avatar ticket for evening show - $15.50.
So yeah, not double, but still "Avatar"'s "jacked up" ticket prices are the only reason it is where its at on the list.
And actually nobody sold me a price at double the amount, because I have absolutely no interest in seeing this movie.
Also, I didn't say anything about "Gone with the Wind", I was just speaking in general. Also, I have to ask, but are you saying there were more theatres in 1939 than there are today? I find that difficult to believe, when most theaters today usually have between 10-24 screens in each theater. I guess there could have been more theater's, but I doubt that there were more movie screens, which is ultimately what matters.
And yeah, JC, you're right. I knew that, I just didn't remember that about people saying the same thing.
PHEW... Now we know Lee doesn't have any interest in seeing Avatar. Boy, you really had us waiting with bated breath for that piece of information. Thank God you came to a message board about a movie you had no interest in seeing to tell us that. You might want to reconsider seeing it as you obviously have nothing better to do.