Something's Making China Really Fat, Really Fast

Mariela Alfonzo just got back from a three-week trip to China, where she's been researching walkability in the rapidly expanding megalopolises of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
And a lot of what she saw wasn’t exactly pedestrian-friendly. Kind of the opposite. In a scary way.
"Driving patterns are a real issue," says Alfonzo, a research fellow at NYU-Poly. "I almost got run over every single day I was there. And I was being attentive." She laughs about it now, but you can tell she's not kidding.
China’s urban areas are booming econ

How Many Films Will Make More Than $400 Million At The Box Office This Year?

Last week, Vulture ran a story saying a $400 million domestic gross is the new threshold for blockbusters.

To put this in perspective, the only movie to reach that number before "Star Wars:  Episode I - The Phantom Menace" came out in 1999 was "Titanic."

Since then, films like "Spider-Man" and "Shrek 2" hit the mark, and re-releases allowed others like "The Lion King" and "E.T." to reach the milestone as well.

In 2009, two movies passed $400 million, with "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" barely crossing and "Avatar" flying past as if it were nothing. 

Now, if one takes inflation into account, a lot of these trends seem meaningless. And 3D ticket and IMAX prices also play a role. But we're box office nerds, and we're sticking with the hard numbers. 

The box office climate is changing. With more emphasis placed on international grosses every year, domestic numbers may not seem as important. But 2012 is on the verge of setting a record that just a decade ago was unfathomable: Three $400 million domestic films in a single year… and possibly more. 

"Hunger Games" finally made it over the threshold this weekend, and "The Avengers" is long past that number.

"The Dark Knight Rises" will easily pass $400 million, the question is by how much. Additionally, Spider-Man's return to the screen after half a decade, and Peter Jackson's "Unexpected Journey" back to Middle Earth have a fighting chance. Let's take a closer look at our three contenders.