Avatar tops record week as Hollywood closes 2009

The US box office will set a weekly record of almost $500 million in the final days of 2009 on sales from Avatar, Sherlock Holmes and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, according to Hollywood.com.

Ticket sales from December 25 through today will top the $396.2 million made July 18-24 last year when the The Dark Knight was released, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com’s box office division. Avatar, James Cameron’s 3-D science-fiction adventure film, is the top seller this week, taking in about $18 million a day, Dergarabedian said. President Barack Obama and his family saw Avatar while vacationing in Hawaii.

The Obamas went to a private showing in 3-D this morning at a movie theater near their vacation home. The first family and some friends had one of the 10 theaters set aside for their private use, while the rest remained open.

The results mark the close of a record year in which North American box-office sales topped $10 billion for the first time. Midweek sales of about $60 million a day equaled a typical non- holiday weekend, Dergarabedian said.

Avatar, released by News Corp’s Twentieth Century Fox, is the fifth-fastest movie to top the $250 million mark, according Box Office Guru, a researcher based in New York.