January 15-17 Box Office: Avatar Takes in $41.6M, Wins the 5th Weekend in A Row as More Records Fall

The Sunday morning box office numbers are out and Avatar has won a fifth consecutive weekend with an estimated take of $41.6m, soundly thumping Book of Eli and setting more records in the process:

• The $41.6m (which if the pattern of previous weekends holds up, will be upgraded by a million or two when final numbers are in) represents the highest all-time 5th weekend by far, taking down Titanic which took in $30m in its fifth weekend.
• Perhaps more thought provoking is that the $41.6m taken in by Avatar is the all-time highest MLK weekend gross ever, edging out last year’s Cloverfield which took in $40m on Friday thru Sunday of MLK weekend.  So in its fifth week in release it drew more than any film ever has on its first weekend on this date.
• Avatar has passed Star Wars $460m, moving into third place all-time behind Titanic ($600m) and Dark Knight ($533m) with a current total of $491.7m.  It will almost certainly pass Dark Knight next weekend, and then the only question will be whether it passes Titanic on the weekend of Feb 6, or Valentine’s weekend.

Just one more anecdotal note:  Last night my wife and I went to see Blind Side, arriving at 7pm at the AMC 16 in Burbank.  All three screens showing Avatar were sold out until the 10:30pm show.  No other screens were sold out.

Oh, and by the way — here’s the link to my Prediction post from Friday:  I predicted $45m so I’m a little bit over, but closer than most who had it in the upper 30’s.  If the usual Monday upgrade happens when finals come out, I should end up very close.