| James | Cameron | Filmmaker | Genius | |
| 1 | Avatar | $48,500,000 (-29.2%) | $14,173 | $429,040,000 |
| 2 | Sherlock Holmes | $16,610,000 (-54.6%) | $4,581 | $165,178,000 |
| 3 | Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel | $16,300,000 (-53.7%) | $4,477 | $178,184,000 |
| 4 | Daybreakers | $15,000,000 | $5,945 | $15,000,000 |
| 5 | It’s Complicated | $11,007,000 (-41.5%) | $3,725 | $76,370,000 |
| 6 | Leap Year | $9,165,000 | $3,650 | $9,165,000 |
| 7 | The Blind Side | $7,750,000 (-34.9%) | $2,691 | $219,197,000 |
| 8 | Up in the Air | $7,100,000 (-33.8%) | $3,201 | $54,700,000 |
| 9 | Youth in Revolt | $7,000,000 | $3,737 | $7,000,000 |
| 10 | The Princess and the Frog | $4,700,000 (-52.2%) | $1,794 | $92,600,000 |
This just in: dude said he was going to go “all R. Kelly on that girl.”
If you follow the numbers, even if you don’t like a thing, it’s impossible not to appreciate the grace of a beautiful athlete. If you’re a sports fan, and you can’t appreciate a great play made against your team, then maybe you don’t really love sports. And though more than half of the domestic (un-inflated) grosses of all time come from this decade, and having a film hit $200 Million (like The Blind Side), $300 (Spider-Man 3) or even $400 (Transformers 2) isn’t all that rare for small or not good movies, when a film performs like this you can’t help but marvel.
How much of that is the inflated gross based on the Imax screens and 3-D? A lot, but let’s not focus on that. Here are the stats of the moment:
– #1 2009 Gross (crossing Transformers 2 yesterday)
– #2 Worldwide ALL TIME ($511 Million behind Titanic)
– #7 All time domestic (with The Phantom Menace at $431, it will be #6 tomorrow, Avatar is off $172 Million from Titanic)
– #58 All time adjusted for inflation
If that last stat sounds like a joke, it isn’t. That’s pretty huge. It won’t crack the top 20 unless it does over $610 Million. That’s the history of cinema we’re talking about.
Bottom line: There’s no way Fox can hide the money on this one. I was talking to someone this weekend, and it sounds like the sequel is all but assured. Whether Cameron goes Lucas OT or PT is unknown. Since these things (even with the advancements in technology) take a long ass time, Fox might be throwing money at Cameron to Git ‘er Done. In that sense Summit is smart to make the Twilight films as fast as they possibly can. You never know if something has imprinted itself on our culture or is just popular for the moment. A fad if you will. And the one thing that proves that (the passage of time) only works one way. But man is born merely to die, so fuck hot hoes, as Plato once opined. The film only fell 30%, but next week it’s going up against The Book of Eli. Titanic has the record for the highest fifth weekend gross, which is $30 Million, and if Avatar sees a leveling out, and does $30-40 Million until March 5, well, that would be nuts. I’m going to assume without looking at the upcoming weekdays that it’s doing $30 next weekend without question, which will put it at – at the very least – $470 (again, that puts it at #3 all time domestic, passing Star Wars). If this behemoth flat-lines it will do $76 Million from Monday to Sunday, which would get it to $500. Next weekend is something of a holiday weekend but a more realistic thought process is closer to a $480 Million total by Sunday, which mean it will get over $500 the weekend after. And it wouldn’t be done, so it would be about having the strength and longevity to get past Titanic.
The Book of Eli is looking for the top slot, and though I haven’t heard much more than mixed reports, Denzel likely means a $30 Million plus opening weekend for an action/genre entry. 1/22 has The Tooth Fairy, and 1/29 has Mel Gibson’s return to mainstream cinema with Edge of Darkness, sugar tits. All of those films could open to over $30, which puts Avatar in a more awkward position than Titanic, which ddn’t have much to deal with.
But to give it hope, neither Alvin and the Chipmunks or Sherlock Holmes have hit the #1 spot for more than a day, and both should be able to get themselves to a $200 Million dollar gross. Sherlock is going to be closer, and I’m guessing that even though the film will double its reported $90 Million dollar budget, Warners will wait until they see some strong international numbers before they greenlight a sequel (currently the worldwide isn’t bad). But the franchise is Downey and he’s got Iron Man 2, this summer, so he could probably care less. The biggest problem with the film is that though it’s doing great business, it’s not the conversation. Avatar is the conversation. the film will be profitable by theiraccounts so it looks like it all depends on how tumultous the production was for the sequel. It’s strange that I don’t see Warners jumping up and down for a follow up as of yet, and they’ve had their chance. Maybe Downey’ whole “our haracters are gay” was his way of fucking a sequel, maybe the bonuses of doing a sequel for the returning cast and crew make it a bad investment. Dunno. Alvin is – as it was last week – a hovercraft full of win. In the old days, I’m sure if a film did this well, someone got a truckload of hookers and blow. I’ve heard stories about the hookers-and-blow truck man, driving from location to location, chatting up such celebrities as Dan Dureya, Arnold Stang and Arthur Hunnicuttt. Those dudes knew how to party.
Everything that opened this weekend did shit. The best of the bunch is Daybreakers, but horror films have a tendancy to collapse. Word is good on the film, so maybe it gets to $40 million, and that would be a big victory. Amy Adams is opening off season with the dude from Watchmen and Match Point. In a comedy that looks like poop. Though I am reasonably attracted to the woman, Adams has no great currency with film goers. Her brand label is not pronounced even with Enchanted – which was more the concept than her, per se – and films like this always come across as the generic-brand porno mag version of Rom-coms. Youth in theaters for 11 more days.
It’s Complicated looks to be clearing the hundred hurdle (and probably killed Leap Year), as might The Princess and the Frog. Up in the Air added runs and fell. It should get some award bounces, and a seven million weekend ain’t grits, but the film isn’t entering the conversation. Avatar has sucked the air out of a lot of things, and a film like Up needs to have more think pieces written about it to be a front runner. We still have some time though, and the pic might limp to $100, but that feels out of range.
More Avatar next week, ladies and gents.
19 comments
Dre – Why aren't you writing movie reviews for the site yet?
This is the best column on CHUD and the only reason to return regularly.
Avatar has exceeded my expectations… Cheers, Cameron. Once again we get sequel rumors. I frankly don't think cameron cares about making a sequel. Unlike lucas he actually cares about making quality films.
Youth in Revolt was great as an adaptation and as its own work. I look forward to its cult growing in the next few years, but this disappointment was sadly inevitable.
Cameron in all likelihood will write and executive produce the sequel. He's too preoccupied in expanding the form of film than repeating himself.
It occurred to me the other day that even directing his proposed BATTLE ANGEL movie would now be just him repeating himself with another motion capture photoreal CGI action/sci-fi film. He's already proven to the world that he can do it. That's why I think it's more likely he'll do more underwater documentaries or that atom bomb film or THE DIVE instead.
Howzabout a 12-hour adaptation of the Rendezvous with Rama series. Come on Jim make it happen?
I wonder how Devin feels, it cant feel good to predict this movie to flop financially and it has allready made history.
I imagine he is ignoring the news about it and just pretends it never happend, he seems like that type of person, ignore the things that prove him wrong as to not make a dent in his fragile mind.
Actually, Devin's busy writing a revision of history where he wasn't all against Avatar. He just wanted the original scriptment to be made, not its current version. You see, Devin is discerning. He doesn't dislike Avatar (even though he clearly ridiculed it at SDCC), he just sees the flaws for what they are: minor plot holes that could've been patched. But he didn't predict Avatar would flop (even though he did) he just WORRIED about it. Can't wait to read Devin's latest about how Cameron can improve upon the flawed Avatar and how everyone is persecuting him for not putting up a glowing review like all of the other SHEEP. cough*bullshit*cough
Why didn't Avatar have a quality script?
Devin cannot get access to James Cameron. JC big leagued him and all his buddies and Devin got but hurt. Devin decided that he would show Cameron the error of his ways and tried everyway he could think of to undercut the movie and insult anyone who was thinking of seeing it. Now he simply tries his best to pimp anything else that might get some traction and hurt the final numbers (holmes, daybreakers, most likely will LOOOOOVE book of eli).
Either that and he is trolling the geeks to draw page hits the same way nick trolled the tweens about twilight.
Expanding the form of cinema? Even the lowest common denominator took a dangerous hit on this one.
Because to you, "quality script" means "something dumbed down so that I understand it."
I can understand keeping track of it out of curiosity, but why does "All time adjusted for inflation" mean anything at all when gauging a film's success? I get it, if we look at what movie tickets cost today compared to what they cost when the films came out and ONLY that, then "Gone With The Wind" would have theoretically made like 3 billion dollars or something. That's such bullshit, because the same people that say things like that fail to mention that the environment these films existed in were COMPLETELY different in regards to how the movie could be seen or what else people were spending their entertainment dollars on. Just as there's a bullshit formula to inflate the numbers, there should be ANOTHER bullshit formula to deflate them, based on the hit that older movies would have taken if piracy, cable TV, home video, video games, even concerts and sporting events (which themselves are for more prominent/expensive than they were way back when) were as big of a deal as they are today.
Avatar is tops once again and Cera is shitting himself in the corner. Devin must be in the fetal position for another week. Have another shame jerk off and actually eat your own cum this time. You know you want to. It's Navilicious.
Devin's opinions about movies are about at spot on as that fruitcake Perez Hilton, who predicted on his homo blog that Avatar would be a collosal bomb. I'll give Heavy D props for sticking with his Cameron hate boner, and thankfully he's shut the fuck up about it. Still, it must sting to claim to be so clued in to the industry and be so wrong.
Why do people care if Devlin liked Avatar or not? Does it reduce your enjoyment or something?
Thanks, Dre. Great column as usual with a few choice smirks and a few choice grins. Shocking to see that this space below your column has been reduced to jokes about Devin's weight. Who could have seen this coming?
Whats with the constant 'adjusted for inflation' comparisons? I mean fair enough to compare them, but in doing so, to get a truly 'adjusted' figure you should factor in all the forms of media and entertainment that current films have to compete against to get people to the cinema that older films never faced.
Gone with the wind had two options to compete against, staying home or going to a theater/play. Of course people would chose to go to a stunning new form of entertainment called cinema.
Now Avtaar has made what its made in the face of an avalance of enterainment options: TV, radio, the entire history of music is just a few mouse clicks away, video, dvd, the internet and the other 100's of options we have to fill in our time.
If you factor in all of those taking away money from a film, then it makes Avatar's perfomance even more impressive.
And yeah, Devin, next time you choose to pre-emptively ruin a film, choose and easier target. If that all works out for you, you might get a scrap of credibility and dignity back.
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