WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE
I’ve
run out of ‘clever titles’ for how great AVATAR is doing…
It’s easy for a lot of people to say NOW
that they "always knew" that AVATAR would make so much
money, or that it would beat TITANIC’s records, but the truth is
that nobody really saw this coming, as only 8% of you
thought the film would gross over $600M back on December 20th when
we asked you that very question in our MOVIE
POLL. In fact, most of you (60%) thought that it would make
between $300-400M. Well, I guess we’ve all learned a big lesson
here and that lesson is that James Cameron is the king of all
movies, and we just love anything he does, right? Right?!!
The short and end of it is this though: AVATAR has
already grossed $553M domestically (beating THE DARK KNIGHT’s
$533M second place spot) and is now only $47M away from
beating TITANIC’s
all-time $600M record (a record I personally didn’t think
would ever be broken, but what the heck do I know about
movies, right?) and might even beat it in the next couple of
weeks! In fact, do we dare start asking if AVATAR will now surpass
the $700M mark domestically??
BTW, for all those STRIKE BACK-ers who always like
to bring up the "inflationary differences"…OKAY, WE
GET IT, inflation rises ticket prices, blah-blah-blah, but the
same can be said about any record in the world, as the world is
always changing, etc… I realize we’ll never be able to compare
apples to apples, as GONE WITH THE WIND probably sold more actual
tickets than any other movie of all-time, but can we stop
discussing it every single week? It’s a "given", we get
it…let’s move on already… 😉 Oh, and for those people who are
dying to know the "real numbers" (with inflation worked
into it), check out BoxOfficeMojo’s ADJUSTED
FOR INFLATION ALL-TIME BOX-OFFICE LIST!! (AVATAR is 26th on that list)
And for those wondering if AVATAR has already beat
TITANIC in worldwide box-office, the answer is "no", but
it may already have as I was typing out that last sentence as
TITANIC sits at $1,840,000,000 billion, while AVATAR is now
at $1,836,000,000 so another measly $7M and it’s the record
holder. Pish-posh.
Oh, but there are other movies on the box-office
charts to discuss, you say? Oh yeah!! So LEGION actually scored a
2nd place finish and some pretty solid numbers for a film that
didn’t look like "all that", but something tells me that
it might not hold on to those big numbers for long. Thankfully for
everyone, the Rock and his lame-looking THE TOOTH FAIRY scored
"meh" numbers with a 4th place opening and about $15M.
That combined with the box-office bomb that was Jackie Chan’s THE
SPY NEXT DOOR might finally convince these action stars that it’s
time they back to their roots and stop chasing the paychecks, at
least for a few years. The only other new film this week was
something called EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES starring Indiana Jones
himself, but thankfully it also tanked pretty big, with a 7th
place finish and $7M (sorry but that movie felt like it should
have been made-for-TV or something).
The 3 films that were knocked out of the top 10 to
make room for the new releases included LEAP YEAR ($23M), THE
BLIND SIDE ($234M!!!) and the surprising UP IN THE AIR ($70M) — I
just thought with all the amazing buzz, awards and the
"George Clooney factor", it would have made a lot more
money, but I think its buzz has died down somewhat at this point.
Next week sees the release of only 2 new movies
although they both might possibly dethrone AVATAR after 6 weeks at
the #1 spot. The first film is WHEN
IN ROME, a romantic comedy starring Kirsten Bell and the dude
who’s married to Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. Sure, it looks
pretty lame, but Valentine’s Day ain’t too far away and "the
ladies" might be looking for an alternative movie choice by
now. The second and more likely film to beat AVATAR is EDGE
OF DARKNESS starring Mel Gibson, whose last screen role was in
2003’s THE SINGING DETECTIVE. This film has greater chances
because it’s a straight-forward action movie and looks pretty damn
intense. Gibson’s films also used to open "pretty big",
so it’ll be interesting to see where he’s at, in terms of
"star power", after the debacle that became his life
after his drinking/driving arrest, etc… So what movie do you
think will be #1 next weekend? VOTE
HERE!!!
| 1. Avatar | $ 36 Million | $ 552.8 Million |
| 2. Legion | $ 18.2 Million | |
| 3. The Book of Eli | $ 17 Million | $ 62 Million |
| 4. The Tooth Fairy | $ 14.5 Million | |
| 5. The Lovely Bones | $ 8.8 Million | $ 31.6 Million |
| 6. Sherlock Holmes
| $ 7.1 Million | $ 191.6 Million |
| 7. Extraordinary Measures | $ 7 Million | |
| 8. Alvin and the… | $ 6.5 Million | $ 204.3 Million |
| 9. It’s Complicated | $ 6.2 Million | $ 98.7 Million |
| 10. The Spy Next Door | $ 4.8 Million | $ 18.7 Million |