Seven… count ‘em, seven… weeks atop the charts for James Cameron’s Avatar is the longest any single movie has reigned in a mighty long time; and sad to say, but even though business was down on Avatar to only a $30 million weekend in the US, it was still nearly twice as much as the nearest competitor raked in.
You could buy a lot of metal buildings with Avatar’s $594 million domestic gross, but when you add in $1.44 billion from overseas sales, you have a weekend in which Avatar went over the $2.0 billion mark in worldwide box office. That’s impressive.
The Mel Gibson thriller Edge of Darkness did better than I expected it to do, possibly benefiting from Avatar-exhaustion. It was a distant second place with $17.1 million in its opening bow.
The movie I expected to do better than Mad Mel’s, rom-com When In Rome, pulled in only $12 million for the former Veronica Mars and Heroes star, Kristen Bell. Duane “The Rock” Johnson’s The Tooth Fairy was the only other movie to top $10.0 million… gaining almost exactly that.
On the horizon for next weekend are Dear John, another rom-com with dramatic pretensions that probably won’t register against Avatar; however, From Paris With Love is also debuting, featuring John Travolta in his fiftieth comeback attempt, or something like that. It doesn’t look like my cup of cocoa, but who knows? If Avatar drops below $27 million and Avatar-exhaustion kicks up another notch, From Paris With Love could knock Avatar from atop the box office charts without even deserving to.
If neither of them do the trick, though, look for Avatar not to make it nine in a row, because with rom-com Valentines Day, a remake of the classic Universal horror flick The Wolfman, and the Harry Potter-wannabe movie, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief all debuting on February 12, there’s no way Avatar can hold off the challenges any longer for box office domination.
You heard it here first.
