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total 2009 box-office gross". The increased ticket price – an average of $2 to $3 per ticket in most markets – has helped the film. Likewise, Entertainment Weekly attributed the film's success to 3D glasses, but also to its "astronomic word-of-mouth". Not only do some theaters charge up to $18.50 for IMAX tickets, but "the buzz" created by the new technology was the possible cause for sold-out screenings. Gray said Avatar having no basis in previously established material makes its performance remarkable and even more impressive. "The movie might be derivative of many movies in its story and themes," he said, "but it had no direct antecedent like the other top-grossing films: Titanic (historical events), the Star Wars movies (an established film franchise), or The Lord of the Rings (literature). It was a tougher sell..."
The film received generally positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% of 263 professional critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.4 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 94%, based on a sample of 36 reviews. The site's consensus is that "It might be more impressive on a technical level than as a piece of storytelling, but Avatar reaffirms James Cameron's singular gift for imaginative, absorbing filmmaking." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 84 based on 35 reviews. CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend revealed the average grade cinemagoers gave Avatar was A on an A+ to F scale. Every demographic surveyed was reported to give this rating. The main reason given for seeing the film was its use of 3D, as it was considered the main draw. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "extraordinary" and gave it four stars out of four. "Watching Avatar, I felt sort of the same as when I saw Star Wars in 1977", he said. Like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, the film "employs a new generation of special effects". A. O. Scott of At The Movies also compared his viewing of the film to the first time he viewed Star Wars, and added that although "the script is a
Critical reception