This past weekend James Cameron’s Avatar spent its 6th consecutive week earning over $100 million dollars worldwide, and finally surpassed Cameron’s previous film (the little known, Titanic) as the highest grossing film of all time.
However it still hasn’t beaten Titanic’s gross takings within the United States (but it’s not far off) and if the gross figures were adjusted to reflect inflation Titanic would still be some ways ahead, especially if the extra premium for 3D tickets (which account for 65% of foreign sales and at least 80% of U.S. sales) was removed.
Nevertheless, James Cameron and the people at 20th Century Fox must be laughing, because they’re responsible for the two highest grossing films ever released, and it’s a pretty safe bet that the director’s next film, even if it isn’t the Avatar sequel (of which there are two possibly planned), will be another massive success even if it doesn’t quite reach the dizzying heights of his last two movies.
Heights which pale in comparison when adjusting all other movies for inflation, as the old classic Gone With The Wind would have netted over $6 billion, making Titanic’s (inflation adjusted) $2.5 billion look like a much smaller and fairly insignificant victory.
However, even with all the inflation adjusting and nay saying, there’s no denying that Avatar has been a simply astonishing success, and that it has created a huge place for itself in film history, and managed to really get people talking about, and going back to the cinema, something that should be commended, and surely will be at the multitude of award ceremonies it’s still set to storm.
