James Cameron’s latest film Avatar has had yet another strong weekend at the box office, making $50.3 million and breaking the record for biggest four weekend gross, previously held by Cameron’s penultimate film Titanic.

Despite having not such a spectacular opening weekend, Avatar has maintained dropped off less than most movies and has already made more than $400 million, faster than any other movie except The Dark Knight in 2008. If Avatar continues along a similar pace it will overtake that movie and possibly become one the highest domestic grosser of all time.

A great deal of Avatar’s box office performance can be attributed to how many customers have decided to see the movie in 3-D Imax theaters, where tickets are significantly more expensive (40% more in my market). The more expensive Imax tickets have cushioned Avatar’s box office performance and constitute about 13% of weekend sales.

This is all proof that 3-D signficantly increases the value of video content. Other media companies have reached a similar conclusion and last week there were also many announcements last week of new 3-D initiatives:

• ESPN and Discovery Communications unveiled plans to launch the first 3-D networks, both of which would be partly subsidized by Sony.
• DirecTV announced also announced plans for a 3-D channel, although it would be pay-per-view and backed by Panasonic.
• Walt Disney Studios and Sony announced plans to release 3D movies on Blu-ray discs.

Although less than 1% of television sets in the United States can display 3-D content, expect to hear about more 3-D ventures in the near future, and to be wearing weird glasses in front of your television. Perhaps Ray-Ban will design some more stylish shades.

Avatar, James Cameron’s new film, premiered to the public late last night. Since James Cameron’s last movie, Titanic, is currently the number one domestic grossing movie of all time, in the long term Avatar is expected to do well and a lot of articles are appearing that are trying to predict and compare its potential success. The Economist published a chart yesterday comparing the top domestic grossers, ranked by inflation-adjusted dollars as well as accounting for multiple theatrical releases. Under these parameters Titanic drops to the sixth position. The following graph lists the same movies, based on number of tickets sold instead of inflation-adjusted dollars, which is basically the same metric.

Based on this information, it is arguable that Gone with the Wind was a more popular movie than Titanic based on this graph. Incidentally, for Avatar to match Titanic’s domestic performance it’s sales would have to be $900 million, well past the $533 million mark of last year’s top domestic grosser, The Dark Knight. Regardless, this wouldn’t be a balanced comparison since it doesn’t take into consideration a few factors.

First of all, media entertainment options are much more abundant than they were in 1939 and the potential for a mass hit which attracts the same numbers of individuals is much rarer today. While movies can be deemed to be blockbusters by today’s relative standards, they do not live up the moniker as determined by standards of Gone with the Wind, Ben Hur and Jaws.

Secondly, theatrical exhibition windows are much shorter now than in 1939 or even 1997. This is due to competition from more entertainment options, and in part due to pressures to push movies towards other release windows like home video and TV.

Lastly, and closely related to the second point, a movie’s success is not measured now by merely domestic box office performance. This was pretty much the only standard in 1939 but today blockbusters make as much revenues or more in international markets, as well as in ancillary areas such as home video and broadcast television rights. Titanic made $1.2 billion in home video sales and rentals, more than double its domestic theatrical sales.

Therefore while Avatar may not sell as many tickets in the U.S. as Gone with the Wind, or while it may not gross as much internationally as Titanic, it may still end up generating more business than either title based on home video revenues, video game sales and other secondary businesses. Unfortunately it is very hard to procure such detailed information so true performance comparison will ever be made, at least publicly.