Domestic box office to hit the $10 billion mark

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Santa will be delivering quite a present to Hollywood execs.  The domestic box office will cross the $10 billion mark for the first time on Tuesday. People were talking about this as earlier as April when Fast and Furious opened to $70.9 million. Even My Bloody Valentine in 3D and Coraline (also in 3D) opened big enough in January and February to get the chatter going. Yes, 3D matters, as those movies and now Avatar are proving. And IMAX screens certainly helped too. (See Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.) Diversifying formats seems to have made the biggest difference, considering there was no The Dark Knight this year. Not even close.

From Reuters:

Through Sunday, the total U.S. and Canadian box office stood just $36 million short of crossing the $10 billion mark, said tracking firm Hollywood.com Box Office.

With Monday generating $29 million in ticket sales, led by strong results for “Avatar,” the industry was expected to cross $10 billion on Tuesday.

And now for the top ten grossers so far this year, courtesy of BoxOfficeMojo:

1    Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $402,111,870
2    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince $301,959,197
3    Up $293,004,164
4    The Hangover $277,322,503
5    The Twilight Saga: New Moon $275,515,901
6    Star Trek $257,730,019
7    Monsters Vs. Aliens $198,351,526
8    Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs $196,573,705
9    X-Men Origins: Wolverine $179,883,157
10    Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian $177,243,721