Although it's the four-day Martin Luther King Day holiday this weekend in the US, which gives movies a little bit of extra time to soak up money at the box office, the estimates are now in for the normal three-day weekend period (from Friday to Sunday).
Avatar has done it once again, soaking up another $41 million - which is a stunningly small 18% drop on last weekend - to hit $491 million at the US box office. This means that during the past three days the film has overtaken Star Wars' $466 million to become the third highest grossing movie ever at American cinemas, and by the end of Monday's federal holiday, it should have broken the $500 million mark.
This will make Avatar the fastest film ever to hit $500 million at the US box office. While Cameron's film will have done it in almost exactly a month, it took The Dark Knight 45 days and Titanic 98 days.
That makes it likely that after next weekend, it'll also have overtaken The Dark Knight's $533 million US gross, closing in on Titanic's $600 million (which it's now looking almost certain to beat). Unsurprisingly it's also smashed the record for a film's fifth weekend in US cinemas. In fact it's take is actually significantly more than any other movie has ever taken in its fourth weekend, let alone its fifth.
It's the first time since The Sixth Sense in 1999 that the same film has topped the US box office for five weekends in a row.
With it's worldwide gross now up to $1.6 billion, it's starting to seem an inevitability that Avatar will overtake Titanic's $1.84 billion as the highest grossing film in history at the global box office. At its current pace, it should hit that level by the end of the month, or early next month at the latest, and it's more than likely that by the end of its run, Avatar will have become the first film to pass $2 billion. The film is showing unprecendented legs at cinemas around the world, and so these unheard of heights are now becoming a case more of when than if.
We'll have another report tomorrow on the other new releases that hit the US this weekend, once the estimates are in for the full four-day MLK holiday weekend, but take a look below for the top 10 for Jan 15th-Jan 17th.
| Rank |
Title |
Weekend Gross (millions) |
Total Gross to date (millions) |
| 1 |
Avatar |
$41.3 |
$491.7 |
| 2 |
The Book Of Eli |
$31.6 |
$31.6 |
| 3 |
The Love Bones |
$17.0 |
$17.5 |
| 4 |
Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakuel |
$11.5 |
$192.5 |
| 5 |
Sherlock Holmes |
$9.8 |
$180.0 |
| 6 |
The Spy Next Door |
$9.7 |
$9.1 |
| 7 |
It's Complicated |
$7.6 |
$88.2 |
| 8 |
Leap Year |
$5.8 |
$17.5 |
| 9 |
The Blind Side |
$5.5 |
$226.7 |
| 10 |
Up In The Air |
$5.4 |
$62.8 |