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Jim Van Nest: I think it will be a long time before anything approaches Avatar and Titanic again. But someone has to mention that Harry Potter will be finishing up the next couple years. I think Deathly Hallows Part 2 might give it a go...though ultimately fall short.

Jason Lee: If history is any indication, the next Avatar-like performance will come from James Cameron's next film.

George Rose: Exactly. There is no film on the horizon that looks to have an Avatar-like performance, because James Cameron hasn't announced his next project yet. Really, there is no way to logically predict this type of success from any film, and the films that have this type of success don't show signs early enough to help us in predicting it. I know Dark Knight was an amazing movie, and more deserving of this Avatar-success than Avatar itself, but I still think it did as well as it did because of Heath Ledger's death. Sure, it was the sequel to the also-awesome Batman Begins and likely would have crossed $400 million without Ledger's death, but that unexpected tragedy was worth enough to push it past $500 million. Like Dark Knight, there was nothing about Avatar a year prior to its release that suggested it would perform like this, other than Cameron's previous work with Titanic. Nobody famous that worked on the film died, it wasn't the sequel to a big hit, and it didn't have previous source material, all things that usually help a film cross the $300 million barrier (see the Spider-Man, Pirates, and Shrek movies for examples). It's usually pretty easy to predict which movies will be among the top 10 of the year blockbusters, and even then there are always unexpected surprises. The Hangover and The Blindside making around $250 million each in 2009 are examples of surprise hits, while examples of blockbuster disappintments can be found with Land of the Lost and even A Christmas Carol. With the release of Avatar, it has become clear the only way to predict a movie will make more than $500 million (or $600 or $700 million) is if it has the James Cameron name brand on it. It doesn't need to be good, have previous source material, or even be a sequel; it just needs Cameron's name. However, I can say with confidence that the Twilight sequels and Harry Potter 7: Part 1 will be huge, but probably won't make more than $400 million. I even think that the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie has a chance to surprise the world, but even that prediction comes with previous source material and an expected gross less than $200 million. It saddens me that the Cameron name has so much power behind it, but this is the reality we live in. James Cameron is King of the World and only he can out-do himself. God help us all.

Michael Lynderey: I agree that the only movie I could see beating Avatar is whatever it is James Cameron directs next, regardless of what that will be - even the long-anticipated Bratz remake would probably do it. But really, it has finally dawned on me that we have now reached the end of an era. Those of us who've followed the box office for a while now have spent the entire 2000s with Titanic as a benchmark, a code word jammed stuck in the back of our minds. It's the title we'd always use to fill in the blank in sentences like "The movie will be pretty big, but it won't beat ____", or "I think Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone just might outgross ____". Soon, that will no longer be the case, and we now have a new code word, just in time for the 2010s. And the question we've asked the past ten years is the same one we'll be asking for probably the next ten, but with a new fill-in-the-blank - how long will it be until something makes more money than ____?

David Mumpower: Shalimar is on the right track here. The key will be the next film that takes advantage of IMAX and 3-D technology enough to create a must-see-in-theaters vibe. The other phenomenon to track is whether such event ticket pricing spikes dramatically. No one has made this association yet, but what we're seeing with movie theaters mirrors 1990s concert ticket pricing. That means there is still a LOT of room for growth, which makes all event films artificially stronger box office performers.

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