The day after Avatar won “Best Motion Picture” (drama) at the Golden Globes, the science fiction epic crossed the $500 million domestic mark. James Cameron, who picked up an award for “Best Director” last night, is also celebrating the fastest film to the rare box office threshold (only 32 days) and a pace set to challenge his own Titanic on both the U.S. and international fronts.
Over the 4-day Martin Luther King holiday, Avatar added an estimated $54.6 million, successfully held the top spot for its fifth consecutive weekend, and rose to a cumulative $505.1 million in the States. It stands in third just behind The Dark Knight ($533.3M) in all-time totals.
Overseas, the Fox film is now at $1.62 billion and, barring any overseen circumstances, it’s poised to become the highest-grossing movie in global box office history. Experts predict the movie to continue to roll through the Oscar season that ends in early March. Of course, none of this stopped Fox’s VP of domestic distribution Chris Aronson from making asinine comments to USA Today. “Titanic was a ship. Batman had a motorcycle. Avatar’s a rocket ship. Is there a lot of fuel left in the tank? You bet.”
Denzel Washington’s post-apocalyptic The Book of Eli won its opening day Friday, but was quickly relegated to second place under Cameron’s unstoppable juggernaut. The Hughes brothers movie made $38 million through the holiday.
Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones expanded wide this weekend to pull $20.5 million and bring its grand total to… $21 million. There’s still a long way to go to cover his expensive CGI purgatory budget.
In fifth was newcomer The Spy Next Door, yet another movie where Jackie Chan embarrasses himself. But wait, George Lopez and Billy Ray Cyrus suck too. The family flick made $13 million over four days, proving parents will bring their kids to just about anything that’s PG.
4-Day U.S. Weekend Estimates:
1. Avatar $54.6 million
2. The Book of Eli $38 million
3. The Lovely Bones $20.5 million
4. Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 $15 million
5. The Spy Next Door $15 million
6. Sherlock Holmes $11.7 million
7. It’s Complicated $9.1 million
8. Leap Year $6.9 million
9. Up in the Air $6.7 million
10. The Blind Side $6.5 million
