WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE
Avatar
meets expectations and then some!
Once again, director James Cameron takes years and
years to finish a project that many complain is "over
budget" and "will likely fail", and proves that he
is one of the premiere blockbuster moviemakers in the world, as
AVATAR opens with great reviews by critics
and fans
alike, and finishes its opening weekend with $73M, the 2nd highest
December opening of all-time! (behind
I AM LEGEND’s $77M set two years ago)
The film did become the biggest 3-D movie
opening of all-time, beating UP’s $68M score from this past
summer, and made an additional $160M overseas, giving it a grand
total close to a quarter of a BILLION dollars in its first three
days of release. Not too shabby…
The rest of the top 10 was pretty uneventful
though (although it was nice to see DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS
falter with a flaccid 4th place opening), with THE PRINCESS AND
THE FROG dropping into second place, while losing about 50% of its
audience from last weekend, which is a lot for an animated movie.
Apparently a lot of people stayed away from theaters this past
weekend because of massive snowstorms on the East Coast, but I
guess we’ll have to wait and see how these films play out over the
next 2 weeks of holiday time.
The only film that didn’t drop close to 50% from
the last weekend in the top 10 was THE BLIND SIDE, which kept on
truckin’, losing only 30% of its audience from that period, and
George Clooney’s UP IN THE AIR, which is still in limited
release but finally managed to climb its way into the top 10 this
week. The three films to drop out of the top 10 this weekend
included 2012 ($159M), ARMORED ($15M) and NINJA ASSASSIN ($36M).
The next week will see the release of a bunch of
movies including Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin aiming for the
baby-boomers with IT’S
COMPLICATED, Jason Lee and some chipmunks aiming for babies
with ALVIN
AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL, Iron Man himself Robert
Downey Jr. attempting to jumpstart yet another franchise with SHERLOCK
HOLMES, as well as Oscar hopefuls like NINE
and UP
IN THE AIR going into wider release, and limited releases
coming out for Oscar consideration including THE
IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS, THE
LOVELY BONES, A
SINGLE MAN and THE
YOUNG VICTORIA (what’s an Oscar season without yet another
British film about their past leaders, yawn).
But the big news this weekend was all about
AVATAR, so how much money do you think the film will make
domestically by the end of its theatrical run? VOTE
HERE.
| 1. Avatar |
$ 73 Million |
|
| 2. The Princess and the Frog |
$ 12.2 Million |
$ 44.8 Million |
| 3. The Blind Side |
$ 10 Million |
$ 164.7 Million |
| 4. Did You Hear about… |
$ 7 Million |
|
| 5. New Moon |
$ 4.4 Million |
$ 274.6 Million |
| 6. Invictus |
$ 4.2 Million |
$ 15.8 Million |
| 7. A Christmas Carol |
$ 3.4 Million |
$ 130.8 Million |
| 8. Up in the Air |
$ 3.1 Million |
$ 8.1 Million |
| 9. Brothers |
$ 2.6 Million |
$ 22.1 Million |
| 10. Old Dogs |
$ 2.3 Million |
$ 43.6 Million |
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BOX-OFFICE ARCHIVES HERE
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