Still, Avatar was a giant at the box office and its figure would have been even higher had it not been for the blizzard. Fox reported that theaters in heavily-populated markets like New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. reported huge Friday-to-Saturday sales declines with some plunging by 70-80%. Grosses typically rise on Saturdays. Nationwide, Avatar bowed to $27M on Friday, slipped 5% to $25.7M on Saturday, and is estimated to drop by only 21% to $20.4M on Sunday when the studio believes it will start seeing some of that lost business start coming back in. Many students have no school on Monday so Sunday evening is expected to be busy.

The road ahead looks encouraging for the Na'vi pic. Audiences have been loving the film giving it a terrific A average from CinemaScore. An exceptionally high 92% of those polled will definitely recommend the film. Adult men made up the largest quadrant as expected. Studio research showed that 57% of the crowd was male and 62% was 25 and older. Exhibitors have been racing the clock all year to get 3D screens installed in time for Avatar's opening and the new hardware, which allows for extra high ticket prices, paid off. 3D was available on 59% of the screens but they accounted for 71% of the gross. 2,032 theaters offered at least one extra-dimensional screen for a total of 3,124 3D screens including 178 in IMAX where consumers pay even more.

Mediocre effects-driven action films opening in mid-December typically can reach three times their opening weekend figure. Something as well-liked as Avatar could certainly play well through the holidays and quadruple its bow giving it a great chance of breaking $300M domestically. Should the legs be amazing, the cume would rise much higher. Of course, Cameron taught us all not to predict a final gross after just three days of release with Titanic which coincidentally also generated the second best December opening ever, at the time.

Critics were mostly positive on Avatar which also won four Golden Globe nominations last Tuesday including Best Picture - Drama and Best Director. The film's official reported budget is $230M, but industry insiders have estimated that the true production cost without marketing expenses is closer to $300M.

Cameron's films have always powered their way to muscular numbers overseas and Avatar was no exception as Fox rolled out the film in over 100 international territories with Japan, China, and Italy being the only major markets still to come. The sci-fi actioner grossed a scorching $159.2M overseas this weekend boosting the global opening to a towering $232.2M. The figures were on par with the most recent worldwide assault from Hollywood - last month's 2012 - which launched with $65.2M domestically, $165M internationally, and $230M globally. That doomsday pic is now at $733M after five weeks of play and Avatar should be able to have better legs thanks to a stronger product and the upcoming holiday break. Its global gross should have no problem soaring higher.

Box Office Guru has an interesting fact filled read as usual...

Welcome back Nazgul, what did you think of Avatar?

Not quite Titanic awesome but great nonetheless. Need to see it a few more times, so much to take in.

Predict Avatars Sunday

Keyser Soze - 22.5m -12%
BJs Prediction: 21.8m -15%
Mark66 - 21.29 -17%
Chip Munkington - 20.9 -18%

Average: 21.65m -15%

you have until 10pm eastern 40 minites

The biggest question now is how it will play during the weekdays.

I Am Legend did the following:

Mon - Dec 17 - $7,465,450
Tue - Dec 18 - $6,503,117
Wed - Dec 19 - $6,021,296
Thu - Dec 20 - $6,064,109

Mon - Dec 24 - $4,401,023 - Christmas Eve
Tue - Dec 25 - $9,781,154 - Christmas
Wed - Dec 26 - $8,721,349
Thu - Dec 27 - $7,403,217

Mon - Dec 31 - $4,855,450 - NY Eve
Tue - Jan 1 - $6,784,420 - NY
Wed - Jan 2 - $3,377,329
Thu - Jan 3 - $2,831,301

Avatar's grade on Yahoo moved up to a solid A rating. The chances of this getting a 4.5+ multiplier are starting to look really good right about now.

If it manages to make more than 65M $ next weekend then it's should easily pass 400M $

Avatar's grade on Yahoo moved up to a solid A rating.

Wow, just wow! When was the last time ratings went up for a blockbuster as time went on?