“Avatar” may be making things interesting for moviegoers, but the blue behemoth is boring film writers to tears. The last weekend in January marks the seventh time the James Cameron ode to the beauty of nature and the power of really expensive special effects has perched atop the box office rankings, bringing in another $30 million, a haul that most studios would be happy with for their film’s first week. But the real news here is that with a worldwide take of more than $2 billion total, “Avatar” surpassed the impressive, formerly record-holding haul of “Titanic,” and it should beat Cameron’s last film’s domestic gross of $600 million sometime this week, which is the last record to fall (not counting inflation adjustments. “Gone With the Wind” can continue to sit on that title).
With the Oscar nominations on Tuesday, as well as the less-than-exciting openings of “Dear John” and “From Paris with Love” next weekend, our readers can be sure of more of the same. Will we really have to wait for February 13th and the openings of “Valentine’s Day” and “The Wolfman” for something to finally unseat “Avatar”? We’ve never cheered so much for critical bombs-to-be in our lives.
Meanwhile, in a fight for second that had all the tension of the romantic interludes on “Jersey Shore,” two newcomers earned the first and second runner-up prizes. It seems that audiences have forgiven (or at least forgotten about) Mel Gibson’s infamous off-screen rant, and his “Edge of Darkness” took $17 million, despite critical ambivalence (and our outright dislike). It was clearly out for the same sort of success of last January’s “Taken,” but that film made almost $25 million in its opening weekend and wasn’t competing against the likes of “Avatar” in the rest of its box office run.
Meanwhile Kristen Bell continues to squander her “Veronica Mars” goodwill with “When in Rome.” Its $13 million in receipts might not be embarrassing, but that’s about the only thing that isn’t shameful about the film (you know it’s bad when we’re praising Dax Shepard).
The rest of the top ten isn’t too surprising, other than “The Blind Side” finally dropping to number eleven with $3 million (and a gasp-inducing $238 million cumulative). Obviously, an Oscar nomination for star Sandra Bullock on Tuesday might make this a one-week event, if the film gets a bump. “The Tooth Fairy” dropped a respectable 28.6% to bring it to fourth place and $10 million, while “Legion” slithered past its reported production budget of $26 million with a total of $28.6 million. “Sherlock Holmes” has the $200 million mark in sight, and “It’s Complicated” just passed $100 million. Meanwhile, “The Lovely Bones” is doing far better than it should with a total of $38 million, but we think it’s more likely that a giant rose would appear in the sky a la Peter Jackson’s creation of the book’s “in between” than the film would actually make its $65 million production budget back.
In the limited release world, the awful “Saint John of Las Vegas” somehow made $22,400 on two screens, but it earning much more than that in the future seems highly unlikely (at least if there is some benevolent force at work in the cinema world). On the other side of the spectrum, we’re happy to report that Playlist recommendation “Crazy Heart” is still climbing. Over the weekend, it earned $2.3 million as it gained 146 more screens. For his amazing turn as Bad Blake, Bridges has earned a Golden Globe and most of the other best actor accolades, and a sure nomination on Tuesday should only help bolster the box office of the small but sure-hearted picture.
1. Avatar – $30 million ($594 mil.)
2. Edge of Darkness – $17.1 million ($17.1 mil.)
3. When In Rome – $12.1 million ($12.1 mil.)
4. The Tooth Fairy – $10 million ($26.1 mil.)
5. The Book of Eli – $8.8 million ($74.4 mil.)
6. Legion – $6.8 million ($28.6 mil.)
7. The Lovely Bones – $4.7 million ($38 mil.)
8. Sherlock Holmes – $4.5 million ($198 mil.)
9. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel – $4 million ($209 mil.)
10. It’s Complicated – $3.7 million ($104 mil.)
