Avatar Sinks Titanic’s Box Office Record

We called it, but now it’s finally happened. Today it was announced that James Cameron‘s Avatar has officially broken the worldwide box office record that was previously held by 1997′s Titanic. The ship sat at the top of the charts for 13 years, but it’s time for it to bow down to a new successor, which so happens to be another Cameron film. Who would have thought?

Wherever James Cameron is at this moment he must be singing “we are the champions,” because he, Titanic, and Avatar are all kings of the box office world. Avatar hit theaters on December 18th and has been number one every week since. There was a lot of pressure from fans and industry insiders for this film to do well, but I don’t think anyone imagined how great it would become. Its first week in theaters it grossed 77 million dollars, which was successful but nowhere near as massive as something like Pirates of the Caribbean or The Dark Knight’s debut.

The key to Avatar‘s overall success is “slow and steady wins the race.” With positive word of mouth it managed to stay at the top of the charts with minimal drop off each week. As of today its total worldwide gross is $1,858,866,889, which pushes it ahead of Titanic‘s $1,843,201,26. That’s a whole lot of money and there’s still time left to get more. Avatar has a lot of box office potential left in it.

Titanic still holds on to the highest domestic gross title with 600 million, while Avatar currently stands at number 2 with 555 million. The way things are going that record could easily be beat. Is there anyone out there who hasn’t seen Avatar at this point?

Are you surprised that Avatar broke Titanic’s record? Do you think it will beat it domestically too?