Avatar Posts $68.3M For New Years Weekend

EDI Nielsen is reporting this morning that Avatar will earn $68.3M on this, its third weekend in release based on studio estimates on Sunday morning.    There is a possibility it might go a bit higher — indeed, every other time there has been a ‘studio estimate’ the figure has been revised upward when final numbers come in.  In any event — even if it isn’t revised upweard, this is a historic achievement.  It also exceeds my projection of $67m for the weekend –and I had been pretty nervous that the projection was too aggressive.  I guess not.

This means that Avatar has racked up the following records over the New Year’s Weekend:

• #1 All Time New Year’s Eve Gross
• #1 All Time  Third Friday Gross
• #1 All Time New Year’s Day Gross

This brings Avatar’s total US Domestic Gross to $352.1M.

And with overseas taken into consideration, it has just passed the $1B mark, joining Titanic and the Dark Knight as the only other films to hit this mark.