A blog dedicated to science, technology, and my interests in music, art & film and especially to Alan Turing for his Imitation Game: a measure for machine intelligence through text-based dialogue.
Amazing news, but hardly surprising considering its global appeal (see the official fan page on Facebook), James Cameron's latest cinematic spectacular, Avatar, has earned $1bn so far, the fastest movie to achieve this, phenomenal! Everything James Cameron 'touches' turns to gold.
"Distributors 20th Century Fox say it has earned more than $350m (£217m) in the US and more than $670m (£415m) in the rest of the world in only 17 days. The 3D science fiction blockbuster was directed by James Cameron, who also made Titanic, the best selling movie of all time.
The latest figures make Avatar already the fourth-biggest film ever made. Ahead of it are Titanic ($1.8bn; £1.1bn), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1.12bn; £695m) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($1.07bn; £664m).
Avatar - ... reportedly the most expensive film ever made, with a budget of at least $300m (£186m).
"This is like a freight train out of control," said 20th Century Fox distribution executive Bert Livingston. "It just keeps on going.
"I think everybody has to see Avatar once, even people who don't normally go to the movies, they've heard about it and are saying, 'I have to see it'," he said. "Then there are those people seeing it multiple times."
Avatar has now reached most parts of the globe. It opened in China on Saturday and is due to reach Italy - its final market - on 15 January.
The huge box office takings are partly down to the higher cost of tickets for 3D performances, says the BBC's Peter Bowes in Los Angeles. But as Hollywood enters its traditional slow season, with few big films due for release, Avatar is likely to dominate the box office for several more weeks, he adds."
It has to be seen in 3D, especially in an IMAX, to appreciate Cameron's brilliance and the wonder of his Pandora world.
What a movie! I want to IMAX-enjoy James Cameron's giant blue cat-Navi Avatars and experience the beauty of planet Pandora again and again and again!
"On Friday, Avatar wrangled a stellar estimated $27 million on approximately 7,000 screens at 3,452 sites (including $3.5 million from its midnight start). The picture's 3D presentations at 2,038 sites accounted for 58 percent of the gross. Avatar's first day stands as the third highest-grossing ever for a December release." (From IMDb)
Update January 2, 2010: "during the week between Christmas and New Year, the box office seemed on track to chalk up $500 million for the week, a record, analysts observed. (The previous record was set last year following the opening of The Dark Knight, when combined ticket sales reached $396.2 million.) Leading the field was Fox's Avatar, which added another $18.5 million to its domestic gross on Wednesday, bringing it to $268.9 million after 13 days. (Far more impressive, however, is the foreign gross, which stood at $525.3 million on Tuesday.) " From IMDb
Haunting score and theme song awaken memories of Titanic; scenes reminiscent of Cameron's Aliens, Spielberg's Jurassic Park, Gibson's Apocalypto and Rob Cohen's Dragonheart, Avatar's allegory may not be new, but the 3D epic, in ginormous IMAX presentation, is what cinematic spectacular experience is all about, thrilling, breath-taking wonder. Cheers, whistles, applause from IMAX's audience, energy that transported to a technical, special effects planet of daunting monsters, exquisite creatures, and a proud Navi people entwined within a soft love tale, battling an oppressive invading force, you just didn't want to leave, you wanted to experience it again, and again. Avatar has received four Golden Globe nominations, it deserves them all (for 'Best Motion Picture - Drama', 'Best Director - Motion Picture', 'Best Original Score - Motion Picture', and 'Best Original Song - Motion Picture'). Let's hope it receives those awards, and some Oscar nominations too. Cameron's interview:
Thank you to James Cameron, the cast and all who were involved in bringing Pandora to life through such a fantastic movie!
Pandora world, image: Flickr
