“Avatar” grossed a relatively modest $3.5 million from midnight showings in North America last night, the L.A. Times reports. Compare that with the record $26.7M in midnight tickets sold for “New Moon” last month, or the $22M midnight score for the last “Harry Potter” in July, or the $18.5M “The Dark Knight” collected at midnight. Of course, these were sequels to hugely popular movies, and none of them ran longer than 2 1/2 hours like “Avatar.” Reportedly the most expensive movie ever made, James Cameron’s epic scored 83 percent positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes (3.5 stars from  me). Forecasts for the weekend range from $65-80M, with the holiday playing season looming in the not-too-distant future.