Box Office: Avatar Crosses $500 Million in 5 Weeks; Book of Eli Opens Strong with $38 Million

Oh man is the box office on fire! James Cameron’s Avatar is showing no signs of slowing down as it has now crossed $500 million at the domestic box office. Avatar now stands only $28 million away from passing The Dark Knight (#2 all time) and less than $100 million from that other James Cameron movie (Titanic at #1.) Can it do it? Absolutely. For the fifth straight weekend Avatar has held the number one spot and with less than appealing movies coming out next week it should go another week at the top spot. Even with competition from Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli, Avatar could not be dethroned from it’s reign. Eli opened very strong with $38 million which is the fourth highest January opening ever. For a full breakdown on the weekend box office continue reading.

The big question right now is whether Avatar can become the highest grossing film of all time. I believe it can seeing as how the film has yet to slow down in five weeks of release. This weekend (which includes Monday for the MLK holiday) Avatar pulled in another $54.6 million. That is less than a 15% drop from last weekend. Cameron’s epic film is the first film to remain at number one for five straight weeks since The Sixth Sense in 1999. It has also broken the record for highest fifth weekend gross beating out Titanic ($30 million.) Avatar also beat out The Dark Knight and Titanic for fast grossing movie to hit $500 million. Titanic did it in 98 days. TDK in 45 days. Avatar did it in 32 days.  One last record Avatar manged to take is the highest Martin Luther King weekend gross, beating out 2008′s Cloverfield ($46.6 million.)

The rest of the weekend box office looked like this:

The Hughes Brothers, directors of The Book of Eli, were fierce competitors for Avatar. On Friday, Eli beat Avatar, but the rest of the weekend went to Avatar and Eli settled in the number two spot with a very impressive $38 million. Eli was the most prominent release this weekend and had the best shot at knocking Avatar from the top spot. Next weekend Avatar may hold onto number one with competition only from The Tooth Fairy, Extraordinary Measures, and Legion.

Since Avatar scored big last night at the Golden Globes with awards for Best Director and Best Picture (Drama) look for it to continue on a steady path as it aims to knock out The Dark Knight and Titanic from their respective spots.

To those of you who follow these box office numbers: Do you think Avatar can become the highest grossing movie of all time? Post your comments below.

Box Office numbers courtesy of Box Office Mojo.