Movieline’s Stu Van Airsdale on Avatar’s potential box office:
“More than one-third of its $232 million to date has been earned between a Monday and Thursday, and its $19.4 million this past Monday ‚Äî its 11th day of release ‚Äî is entirely unprecedented.”
And:
So if we had to pin a number on Avatar, let’s start at $1.3 billion, which comprises around $500 million domestic and $800 million foreign. It shouldn’t do less than that, and it really shouldn’t do less than $900 million abroad, all things considered (it has yet to even open in China). If it wins Best Picture at the Oscars, it’ll hit at least $1.5 billion, with most of that bump coming domestically as Fox will have lost a chunk of overseas screens by then. So that’s most likely a domestic gross approaching Titanic’s record $600 million — hell, let’s just say it’ll hit $600 million — and maybe a foreign record burbling over the billion-dollar mark. It could happen. Either way, folks, you’ve paid for the sequel; if I’m overshooting anything now, I doubt I will be when Cameron offloads his next in four or five years. Let’s just hope he comes around on the Avatar Holiday Special by then.
It’s still a big”if” for the Academy to go for Sci Fi. They knocked off fantasy but Sci Fi is not their cuppa. But we’ll see. Titanic did its serious money after it was nominated for all of those Oscars.