Sorry Leo, but you no longer can say your movie is number one. Sadly all he can say is it use to be and he worked with the same director who has the number one spot. Worldwide Avatar has hit $1.859 billion dollars. WOW! That is insane. Of course I’m sure James and the studios would love to cap that off by rounding it to $2 billion.
The question now is will it hit it’s Domestic Revenue? Right now it’s currently at $555 million and movie experts are saying it’s not slowing down. I’m sure we can expect to see it beat Titanic in the next few weeks. Very exciting for the actors of the film. Congrats! Just $45 million + to go.
To be honest, Avatar can’t either. There has been a lot of talk lately about how Avatar has officially surpassed Titanic as the #1 grossing film worldwide. However, there is a lot to be said for the fact that people pay more to view a 3D film than they do to view a standard 35MM print. In addition, while the average cost for a movie ticket in the US is $7.35 (it’s $11 in my area, but as soon as you step into the suburbs it’s $9 so I think that’s a fair estimate), to view an IMAX screening of Avatar, one pays anywhere from $17 – $20 which is double the average. In 1977 in the US when Star Wars was released, the average movie ticket cost $2.25 and in 1939 when both Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz were released a film cost $0.23 a ticket.
So where does Avatar actually rank when you adjust for inflation and take away all those surcharges and what films really rank supreme? You might be surprised.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/vehiclesshockme/boxoffice1.png
Thats a link to the list.
Keep in mind that this list is just a domestic one for the US and doesn’t reflect worldwide sales but it still paints a more accurate picture of the top films when taking inflation into account. Also note that a lot of these movies have gotten their numbers up through multiple release. Pre 1980′s the only way you were going to see Gone With the Wind was through a rare presentation on television or when it was rereleased at your local theatre since VCRs did not exist yet. Disney is pretty notorious for this as well, before they started releasing their films on tape and DVD for a limited time before “putting them in the vault” they did the same for theatres, rereleasing a movie every 6 to 7 years so a new generation of young children could see it.
My source. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm