Romance proved to be a powerful foe for the epic Avatar, which has dominated the box office for the last seven weekends. The Lasse Hallstrom-directed romantic drama Dear John won the weekend in a big way, grossing an estimated $32.4 million and setting a record for the highest-grossing Super Bowl Sunday frame in history. Avatar fell to second place for the first time, dropping a still scant 25% to $23.6 million. The James Cameron film has now out-grossed every movie in the history of cinema (as long as we don’t adjust for inflation) with a domestic take of an astounding $630 million. The other wide release, From Paris With Love didn’t have nearly as an auspicious debut. The R-rated actioner from Taken director Pierre Morel mostly drew audiences interested in John Travolta’s turn as an over-the-top, gun-toting renegade CIA operative, yet earned only an estimated $8.1 million.
Much of Dear John’s success can be attributed to a successful marketing campaign targeted towards women, who comprised 84% of the audience. The movie, which was based on Nicholas Sparks’ novel, was financed entirely by Relativity Media, and distributed by Sony’s Screen Gems division. It bested the previous record held by 2008’s concert film Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds which opened to $31.1 million.
The rest of the top ten was dominated by holdovers. Mel Gibson’s Edge of Darkness had quite a steep fall this weekend, losing 59% of last week’s haul for a fourth place finish with $7 million. Tooth Fairy has benefited from a lack of children’s fare in the marketplace. The film’s third week in theaters fell only 35% for an additional $6.5 million. The film’s cume still needs some help with only $34 million. When in Rome was crushed by women flocking to Dear John. The romantic comedy starring Josh Duhamel and Kristen Bell fell 55% to $5.5 million. Its 10-day total stands at $21 million.
The Book of Eli took spot seven with $4.8 million, while Crazy Heart benefited greatly from its three Oscar nominations. The film, which added some 700 theaters to its release, landed in the top 10 for the first time, grossing $3.6 million for an eighth spot in the derby. Rounding out the top ten were Legion in slot nine with an additional $3.4 million while Sherlock Holmes crossed the $200 million mark its seventh weekend in theaters with an additional $2.6 million. It’s total now stands at $201 million. Even though records were broken for the top film, the weekend still performed beneath last year at this time when Gran Torino, Paul Blart Mall Cop, Slumdog Millionaire, and Taken dominated the frame.
NOOO, HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?! AVATAR MUST COME BACK ON TOP.
Why do you care so much about Avatar being on top? Did you make the movie?
I was kicked out of 2 Dear John showings for playing with myself to Tatum and 1 for playing with myself to Seyfried
Avatar is so like Dance with Wolves. Especially the part were Kevin Costner is flying around on a Teradactyl fighting Union soldiers in Power suits. sigh.
I own Dances with Wolves. Avatar has the basic element of the white guy who goes native but otherwise is completely different. People act like it’s a carbon copy
Fizzuck All of You!
A V A T A R could care less haters.
Domestic: $629,344,204 28.5%
+ Foreign: $1,579,924,401 71.5%
= Worldwide: $2,209,268,605
@Ambient Life, hell yeah girl you’re bringing sexy back. But how could you even get wet sitting in a movie like that.. I guess you know how to make the most out of a boring situation. haha you’re hilarious..
Wow,thats hot.I dig ya girl
i pleasured myself to GI Joe cause of Channing Tatum-too bad it was at a kid’s matinee
i farted alot during Avatar-sam worthington gave me the farts..he looks like a fart to begin with i see his face and thing…er…*FART*
Agree with whatevs. It’s been on top for 7 weeks. Who cares if it’s not anymore? My goodness, some people are so stupid.
And looking at some of the other comments here, some people really have no common sense. I’m not even going to bother pointing it out. Wow, just wow.
Yet another case of the passionate fangirls running the box office! We’ve seen it with Sex And The City, Twilight, and now Dear John.
Dude, no one has patience to watch 10 minutes of a video. Man i guess no one watches. Stop posting your videos over here. Don’t you have a blog or something? I’m going to post my sex tape one of these days. Build a little auto publicity too.
The success of the brainless “Avatar” was dumb fanboys ruining the box office.
I know Im a loser. My videos are so stupid. But I want to see your sex tape Lily.
LOL Grady! Yeah Lily, post the tape.
kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk Grady i LOVE you man. I’m kidding not about the sex tape thing, but the self promotion stuff. Just make your videos shorter and i would totally be a fan. You makes some interesting comments and you’re hot, so… give your e-mail and i’ll send you the tape, maybe we could one later?
Hi Lily
We could totally make a tape together. Thanks for the nice words.
I am waiting very eagerly to get your tape. My address is jimjimjimjim61 at gmail.com
Please send it….
Ok i’ll send. And look you’re not a loser, especially if you realize that your comment received the biggest number of replies! =] Re-reading my first commentary it sounded rude, it didn’t sound like that in my mind. Keep doing this, you are doing for a LONG time, (i’ve been flirting with you for a long time too, but with different names kkkkkkkkkkkk) and is great. Maybe create a blog isn’t a bad idea either, but keep posting over here. it takes time to load, but i’ll watch it! kisses, see you later and maybe you can review my tape! =]
How dare you call me stupid.
WTF is Kim and who called her stupid?
Lily baby
I am waiting for the video still
I cannot wait to see it
Don’t forget me sweetie
Thank you for the nice things you are saying. It’s feedback like this that inspires me to continue.
FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just kidding.
AVATAR didn’t really benefit from its Oscar nods, which is understandable…its already outstanding box office take needed no spike, basically everyone who wanted to watch it, pretty much has. I think it will actually get an increase IF it wins any of the two “Big” Oscars…but that’s doubtful.
Damn you, KIM! I thought I was first!! LOL
I HATE FIRST TOOLS.
I always comment here on box office stuff. Damn Im a loser
Avatar done in by an inbred hillbilly stripper
It wasn’t even KOed as EW so delicately put it. It still made over 20 mil, which is pretty impressive for a film in its 7th week of release.
It’s the 8th week.
Funny, I thought if any romance was going to beat Avatar, it would be VALENTINE’S DAY with all its stars.
DEAR JOHN looks like a really bad, ultra-sappy tearjerker…
Valentine’s Day looks even worse than Dear John.
I watched Valentine’s Day when it was called Love Actually and it was about Christmas…
haha, so true.
My thoughts exactly, Lily.
I was kind of interested in Valentine’s Day until I realized that the only reason they have so many actors in that film is because Garry Marshall couldn’t make up his mind about the plot. That film will be all over the place. I’m going to save my money and just re-watch Love Actually.
“inbred hillbilly stripper”????
Are you talking about a different Dear John?
barock is probably referring to Channing Tatum.
Well I said Nicole must be smoking crack when she said this movie is going to be No. 1. I look really stupid now but who cares Avatar rule No. 1 movie of all time!
“Watch Pink performance at the Grammys, all 80s music videos plus new ones free on defSpot com’
FINALLY!!!! Maybe this means Avatar will stop dominating EW, I’m so sick of blue aliens (almost as much as sparkly vampires)
It’s about time. People need to realize that Avatar (while being fantastic technically) is not a great film. It’s hardly even a good film. I’m sure Dear John is not Citizen Kane either but it’s about time the public began realizing that Avatar isn’t worthy of the worship it’s getting.
And what’s really sad is that Avatar and The Blind Side – two crowd pleasers which are not very good movies – are nominated for best picture. The Academy really loses credibility with this.
Noelle the only thing that’s sad is the fact that you have really bad taste. And since you don’t have any credibility at all the Academy has nothing to worry about!
hey Pete-Suck my dick
What are you talking about? Avatar is still extremely successful? So after like 2 months,it goes down to number 2. Who cares? It’ll probably go back to number 1 soon. This has nothing to do with people “realizing that Avatar isn’t a good movie”. It’s just the way life naturally stays. No movie stays number 1 forever!
I made alot of grammar mistakes in that, but you still get the point!
I think that “Avatar” is a great and epic movie. I am sick of all the hate for this movie. It is an awesome technical achievement. The storyline may be a little thin but it is memorable. Just because Avatar is a box office powerhouse doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be nominated for Best Picture or Director. It seems lately that Best Picture nominees are all “artsy” movies I’ve never heard of or don’t want to see. “The Reader” last year was HORRIBLE and should never have been nominated for Best Picture. What a dreary movie. Kate Winslet did not deserve to win best actress either. Meryl Streep deserved to win for Doubt. And “Slumdog Millionare” was VERY overrated!!!
only reason this happened is because all the guys are stuck to the superbowl weekend, while the women go out and watch chick films.
Avatar will claim number 1 back next week.
Nope, I predict Valentine’s Day will top it
Dear John made $6mil more than Avatar on Friday, but only about $3mil more on Saturday and Sunday. Will Avatar come on top of DJ by next weekend? Hmmmm.
And this victory for “Dear John” is without we folks in Maryland who got 2 feet of snow and still can’t get out. I was supposed to see it with my daughter this weekend. We shall do so next week if we can get the snow to go away.
Are you kidding me; this movie was terrible! Avatar still rules!
How do they know that 84 % of the people that saw Dear John were women, sounds like a made up number to me.
Exit polls. It’s the same way they get cinema scores. Do you really think a prominent entertainment magazine would just make up a number? Honestly, is that a joke?
I saw dear john. I had to becuase of my daughter. it was very bad. I think we go and see avatar again next weekend. it was a great movie.
Dear John was a good movie. Of course there were some differences between the book and movie, but for the most part it stayed true to the novel.