by Felix Richter, Statista.com
GTA V reached the billion-dollar revenue milestone faster than any other entertainment product in history. It took the game only three days to achieve what Avatar, no less than the most successful movie of all times, did in 17 days.
With an estimated production/marketing budget of $265 million, GTA V is not only the most expensive video game of all time, but also more expensive than most of today’s Hollywood blockbusters. Considering this, it seems only fair to compare GTA’s commercial success to that of Hollywood movies.
Before the game’s highly anticipated launch, analysts had predicted that Take-Two Interactive could probably sell 15 to 20 million units of the game and thus earn $1 billion by March 2014. That estimate turned out just a tad too conservative: the game went on to earn $800 million within the first 24 hours and after less than three days, Take-Two issued a press release stating that the game had just passed $1 billion in sales.
Not only does that make GTA the fastest game to reach that milestone, but the fastest-selling entertainment product of all time. The two highest-grossing movies in history, James Cameron’s Titanic and Avatar, both took considerably longer to pull in one billion. While Avatar ties for fourth place with the latest Harry Potter movie in our inofficial ranking, Titanic doesn’t even make the cut. Released in December 1997, the Cameron-directed epic didn’t reach the billion-dollar mark until March of the next year.
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