"Avatar" Is Biggest Box Office Draw Ever

"Avatar" Is Biggest Box Office Draw Ever
Cameron Film Sinks His "Titanic" as Highest-Grossing Movie, but "Gone with the Wind" Way Ahead When Inflation Factored In
Jan. 26, 2010


(CBS) "Avatar" has surpassed "Titanic" at the box office, topping $1.8 billion worldwide.

"To get to those numbers," says Hollywood.com's Paul Dergarabedian, "you need repeat business, you need great word-of-mouth, and you need to grab an audience basically across the board."

"Avatar," observes CBS News Correspondent Ben Tracy, has made director James Cameron king of the world again. He did it by creating an entirely new world for moviegoers, combining state-of-the art 3D visual effects with old-fashioned romance.

Avatar star Sigourney Weaver says Cameron "has so much respect for the audience and the individual theater-goer, he wanted to give them the story he dreamed of seeing when he was 14/"

Still, Cameron was criticized early-on for the film's budget, said to be nearly half-a-billion dollars.

But Cameron was having none of it, saying, "You learn to tune all that out and just say, 'Wait until people see the film. Then we'll know if we're in trouble or if we're in good shape."

That, understates Tracy, is no longer in question, with "Avatar" attracting a worldwide audience of both men and women, young and old. "And it ain't over yet," Dergarabedian points out. "This film could do $2 billion worldwide, something unthinkable" before.

Yet, says Tracy, "Avatar" will need some very special effects to beat the inflation-adjusted box office champ.

In 1939, 'Gone with the Wind" took in $400 million worldwide. That's the equivalent of some $6 billion in today's dollars.