It’s 2010, folks, and lots of us are thrilled to have another blank slate on which to draw. But despite the year being so shiny new and all, the box office looks suspiciously similar.
James Cameron’s sci-fi extravaganza Avatar made another $68.3 million over New Year’s weekend, according to boxofficemojo.com, bringing its North American box-office take to $352 mil. (Sherlock Holmes and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel finished a distant second and third, respectively.) Avatar’s numbers are even more impressive internationally: The denizens of Pandora have now generated $1 billion worldwide in three weeks. Prognosticators say it’s just a matter of time before it passes Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, 2009’s top-grossing film, and it may become the second highest-grossing film ever, right behind Cameron’s own Titanic.
Granted, if you adjust those figures for inflation, of course, Avatar‘s numbers don’t look quite as impressive. But it’s still made a heap of money, and my question for you today is simple: Why?
What makes this film so resonant? Is it the special effects? The story? Is James Cameron really that great a filmmaker? Or does he just have really, really good timing?
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