Avatar Surpasses Titanic's Domestic Record

The most prestigious record at the domestic box office is now, as expected, Avatar's. On Tuesday, Avatar surpassed Titanic to become the biggest film of all time at the North American box office. The film, now at $601,141,551 after 47 days, surpassed Titanic's $600,788,188 cume. James Cameron is now the only filmmakers whose film has surpassed his previous one to achieve the all time record. Steven Spielberg came very, very close with Jurassic Park and E.T., but Jurassic Park, while it raced past E.T. globally, remained well behind E.T. on the domestic front.

Avatar will not be losing much steam anytime soon, and looks headed for $800m now. A truly historic run, irrespective of the film's artistic merits.

As for Titanic, it became the biggest film of all time on March 14th, 1998, on its 86th day, by surpassing Star Wars: A New Hope's $461m, which included the $138m tally from the film's 1997 re-release.

Titanic was #1 domestically for 620 weeks, or 4,343 days, or 11 years, 10 months, and 19 days.

It is highly unlikely that Avatar's record will stand for this long. In fact, I expect a film to surpass Avatar sometime this decade, as ticket price inflation will increase the likelihood of $500m+ films. And as Avatar itself demonstrates, nothing remains stagnant at the box office.