Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington in Avatar
Avatar grossed an estimated $25 million at the domestic box office on Friday, New Year's Day, surpassing the $300 million mark, reports Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood. The total domestic gross of James Cameron's sci-fi epic currently stands at $308.8m. Worldwide, it's at more than $800m. For this weekend, estimates have been hovering around $60m.
Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, earned an estimated $14.8m on Friday; Alvin and Chipmunks: The Squeakquel grossed $13m; and the Meryl Streep-Alec Baldwin-Steve Martin romantic comedy It's Complicated added another $7.1m. George Clooney's Up in the Air, which will likely receive a number of Oscar nominations come next February, grossed $4m.
Also, Sandra Bullock's The Blind Side crossed the $200m mark domestically on Friday, after earning $4.5m. The sentimental drama has been out for 7 weeks. (It hasn't opened internationally, yet.) Rob Marshall's all-star musical Nine, on the other hand, earned only $1.4m for a total of $11.2m after about two weeks in general release.
Many have been comparing Avatar's take to that of Titanic, but for the most part those comparisons are misguided. Ticket prices are on the average much higher today — $4.59 vs. $7.18 in 2008 — and most of Avatar's money has been generated at 3D/IMAX theaters that charge premiums (e.g., $17.50 is the cost for one adult to watch Avatar at a 3D/IMAX AMC theater in Los Angeles). Also, back in 1998 Titanic was screened at fewer theaters than Avatar and its running time is more than half an hour longer. All those things should be considered when comparing Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet's 2D romance to the 3D Na'vi effect.
Reported production costs for Avatar have ranged from $200m (according to Fox) to more than $500m, in addition to prints, advertising, and distribution expenses, which initially added another $150m to the film's final cost. So, even though grosses have been remarkable — Avatar has been out for only 15 days (Fri.) — the film probably still have some ways to go before it earns 20th Century Fox a profit even if it's placed at the lower end of the cost scale. (It all depends on how much of its own money Fox shelled out to produce Avatar.)
Generally speaking, studios get approximately 50% of the box-office take in the domestic market and 40% from overseas. Percentages, however, can vary widely depending on contractual stipulations, e.g., if the film makes most of its money on week #1 that's great for the studio; it's not so great if the grosses come in installments as is the case with Avatar. Additionally, Fox will likely have to share some of its earnings with above-the-line talent and partner companies. And the longer Avatar stays out, the costlier the marketing campaign.
Of course, at this stage it's nearly impossible for Fox not to make a profit on the film, especially considering Avatar's probable long life on DVD, pay-per-view, etc., both domestically and internationally.
Photos: WETA / 20th Century Fox
It's funny how well Avatar is doing. I don't know how many times over the last year I have seen comments, on news articles that were about 3d and mentioned avatar, saying that Avatar would be another Waterworld. I guess that turned out not to be ture.
I think Avatar is a milestone in the filmmaking and it will go a long way. People will see it many times provided there are 3d screenings in more theatres. For example there are very less theatres providing 3d version in my country. I'm from India.
The theatres which provide such screenings are booked for one week in advance. So it is sure that the respomse is very good for this movie and i willl one day see the 3d version. I have already seent the 2d version and am waiting to see the 3d version eagerly.
Those percentages weren't made up. They were researched. They're easily accessible online in various trade publications.
Nowadays, domestic box office represents approx. only 25-30% of a film's total take. Perhaps that's why the major studios are still in business.
I really doubt the statement: Generally speaking, studios get approximately 50% of the box-office take in the domestic market and 40% from overseas
If others (distributors, theaters) can make 50% from the collections, that's really huge. In that case, I don't want to be in the studio business, I would rather be building theaters and be profitable all the time. If there are 20 theaters in a complex and the theaters get a huge share of the pie, that doesn't sound fair to the studios, who take all the pain to make movies. This just doesn't sound right to me
Avatar hasn't premiered in China yet. The film should easily make 500 million domestic and 800 million WW.
Any related cost to this movie is about the least relevant issue now. It's a cash cow by any standard. What can stop this beast and whether it will approach Titanic's worldwide gross are about all that's left for the business side of Avatar.
ChimmyChunga,
You missed the last three paragraphs of the article…
Maybe I am missing something.
"the film probably still have some ways to go before it earns 20th Century Fox a profit"
What? Even in the article you claim it earned more then $800 million world wide yet you also say Fox hasn't earned a profit. How could they not?
Official comment has stated Avatar received a budget of $237 million. But lets say they are wrong and it really cost around $300 million. Then lets say around $200 million for worldwide marketing and other expenses. That bring it to a total of $500 million.
$800 million box office – $500 expenses = $300 million profit for Fox. It would be a sad day for the film industry if they were unable to make $800 million in theaters yet not earn a profit.
In the article, advertising, prints, and distribution costs were not included as "production costs." They're referred to as additional costs.
And whether or not you want to include them in the film's total cost, those figures are there. They exist. And they'll have to be covered before the studio — any studio, any film — sees any profits.
Man, prints and marketing are NEVER included in the budget. The budget of a movie represents exclusively the production cost of that movie, nothing else. If we would add marketing and prints for all the movies out there then Harry Potter, 2012, Transformers 2, Up, Monsters VS Aliens, Terminator Salvation, GI Joe and A Christmas Carol would all cost a similar amount of money. What I mentioned above are movies with production cost ranging from 175 million to 250 million, Avatar is very much in that range (and not even first). All of those movies had huge marketing budgets and every single one of them opened in more theaters then Avatar in the US (more prints). By your logic Harry Potter and maybe Transformers should be the only ones that made their studios some money.
Avatar will be at 1 billion dollars at the end of this weekend, I wonder what you'll say then.