It's still over $41m ahead, that's a lot. No more amazing midweek days for Avatar from here on out. That damn opening week for TDK was gargantuan.

But TDK's weekdays came back to earth in its third week. AVATAR should be able to match it weekday to weekday (or at least stay pretty close), and it will crush TDK on weekends.

TDK's 4th/5th/6th weekends: $26 mil, $16 mil, $10 mil
Avatar's 4th 5th/6th weekends: $42 mil, $29 mil, $20 mil

That's $40 mil right there.

I'm not so sure about it doing $42m on its 4th weekend. It's coming off an inflated weekend, the drop might be bigger.

It INCREASED after New Years. The only day that was inflated was Friday

your pessimism is appalling

I know...

It was just so much fun watching how fast it was catching up.

*slap* SNAP OF OUT IT

ouch

I agree, unfortunately there is too much guessing. However, this is my understanding of the situation, and if anyone thinks this interpretation is incorrect please post.

The avg ticket price in NA for 2008 was $7.18, and the projection is that it will increase to $7.41 for 2009. So, that is the average for the entire NA market, it includes a $3 child's ticket in Arkansas, and a $13 adult ticket in NYC. It includes discounts to groups, companies, and any other promotions that might lower the cost of a ticket. I also think this includes 3D sales, so if you take out the approx. $3 surcharge, the avg ticket would be perhaps around $7.

As an example, lets pretend for the year there were only ten movies released in NA and they all made exactly $7m for the year. Now one of the movies was released in 3D only (no 2d option for this film A), the average price for the ticket for this movie would be $10 and 700,000 tickets were sold for A. The average ticket price for the other nine movies would be $7, and one million tickets were sold for each of those films. So, the attendence for the year would be 9.7m, and total box office would be $70m, but the average ticket price would be $7.21 for all ten films even though only one film charged that price and the price was 42% higher than the other 9 films.

There are approx. 3300-3500 3D screens in NA and 39,000 screens, so the screen ratios are at least approximate.





http://www.natoonline.org/statisticsscreens.htm

Sunday $18.99m

BJs Prediction: 20.85m -19%

Is this for Sunday 1/3/10? Is this still open?

yup, you ahve until 10pm eastern to post a prediction.

Avatar has already passed TDK WW and it will be the second largest WW Box Office after Titanic no later than next Sunday.
What's the big deal about Avatar closing or not the $42 million gap with TDK in the local markets of the USA and Canada?

I want total win!

$19.1 million

fuck this Avatar will make 20M on Sunday

I do, it is the difference between a movie being like the Jazz Singer, which did not charge extra for being a "talkie" and a movie like Gone With The Wind or Star Wars. Is Avatar a very popular movie for its era like the Jazz Singer (which was only #2 or #3 at the box office in 1927), which will usher in more movies like it? Or is it a movie that has captured the zeitgeist?

I like your last sentence.

I'm upping my Sunday estimate to 20.1

For a 70.1 mil weekend.

Awesome Friday-Saturday numbers.

Also- we should know by next Friday whether or not this film will beat Titanic domestic. Very exciting box-office times indeed.

Except it doesn't work so well with indiviual items. Parking at KC Royals games in 1978 was $0.50. Now it is $9.00 according to your handy dandy calculator it should be $1.66. Attendence went down only 20.3%, but that was due more to having a lesser product, than any highfalutin words like elasticity. Wouldn't a rise that steep predict a much bigger decline, if I happened to understand such a complex concept?

For an individual item like the avg. price of a movie ticket, House of Wax adjusts for ticket price inflation to $362.8m.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/ad ... 009&p=.htm

There are many problems with inflation even for a specific item. I understand the concept as I am sure you do as well. House of Wax did not sell exactly that many tickets, but it most likely sold approx. 50m tickets. My question was when do you think Avatar will pass that standard?

I was not attacking your post or love of Avatar. I used do these sort of upcoming benchmarks in all my tracking posts on movies like Passion of the Christ compared to The Robe or The Ten Commandments.

This is a box office web site and ticket sales are part of the b.o. conversation. We like to write and debate different aspects that Brandon Gray's regurgitation, and David Poland's contrarian schtick don't cover. I study the box office as more of a Bill James disciple looking for things others are overlooking or not addressing. I apologize if I am straying too far off topic, but your second post seemed riddled with false assumptions of my motivations.

I have no idea how studio motives are germane to your original post or my original respone. Nice attempt at changing the subject, though.

Predict Avatanic's Sunday


Keyser Soze - 21.5m -18%
BJs Prediction: 20.85 -19%
Jmovies - 20.0m -22%
Soagg - 19.8m -23%
Eventine - 19.1m -26%
Chip Munkington - 19.0m -26%
Revatar - 18.99m -26%


Average: 19.89m -23%

2 hours

Yo, BJ

What's the prediction for the Monday drop?