Avatar, ctd

Sometime late Saturday evening, James Cameron’s sci-fi eco-epic Avatar crossed $700 million at the box office. It’s a pretty astounding figure, and it’s worth just briefly looking at some of the figures aside from the total gross. This might get a little nerdy; please bear with me:

• It took number one at the box office for seven straight weekends, the most consecutive number one weekends since Cameron’s previous behemoth, Titanic.
• The second weekend drop was under 2%, unheard of in this day and age. Avatar has only seen one weekend drop greater than 30%, and that didn’t come until the 10th weekend.
• That aforementioned drop only happened after Avatar made more money on the 9th weekend than the 8th. Movies don’t gross more money in their 9th weekend than they did on their 8th. It just doesn’t happen anymore.
• It’s made all of this money while selling far, far fewer tickets than Titanic did. In addition to the standard inflation of ticket prices, Avatar has benefited hugely from showing on so many Imax screens (which charge a premium of several dollars on top of the regular ticket price) and so many 3D screens (which charge a premium of several dollars on top of the regular ticket price).

That last fact is the key one, from Hollywood’s perspective. In an age of declining theater traffic, you need to be able to squeeze as much money from people as possible, and one relatively easy way to do that is via 3D screens. This is why Clash of the Titans is coming out in 3D now instead of the 2D it was shot in: Studios want to cash in on all that 3D money.