As expected, James Cameron’s epic 3-D adventure Avatar easily won the weekend with over $73 Million. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but it is hardly the type of money that studio dreams are made of. Take into account that the number is slightly inflated because IMAX tickets cost more than regular tickets, and you come out with a good, but not great, weekend. The movie didn’t break any records, and came in under many projections.
There is some conjecture that a winter storm that blanketed the East coast might have had a deleterious affect on ticket sales. Worldwide, the film fared better, and hauled in over $232 Million. The film is enjoying great word of mouth, and received a solid “A” cinemascore .
Other than that, the weekend before Christmas was silent. Disney’s holdover The Princess and the Frog dropped 50%, and managed an okay $12 Million, and yep, there was the ever reliable The Blind Side in the number three spot.
Audiences did not want to hear about the Morgans, so the Hugh Grant/Sarah Jessica vehicle Did You Hear About The Morgans? limped in at $7 Million. The Twilight Saga: New Moon rounded out the top five.
Up In The Air caused the most commotion outside the top five this weekend. Playing on only 175 screens, the George Clooney led ensemble managed to bring in over $3 Million. To put that in perspective, Did You Hear About The Morgans played on over 2,700 screens and barely doubled that. Up In The Air averaged over $17,ooo per screen compared to Did You Hear About The Morgans’ $2,500 per screen average.
Also of note was Rob Marshall’s Nine, which is set to open wide on Christmas day. It enjoyed a very respectable $61, 700 per screen on only 4 theaters. If it can hold those numbers when it expands, it should have some pretty impressive totals.
