Last weekend, successfully defending his land from intruders like the Na'vi, James Cameron had no problem staying put at number one at the North American box office for a fourth consecutive weekend with his futuristic megablockbuster Avatar which grossed more than all three new releases combined. The silver and bronze once again went to Sherlock Holmes and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel while the vampire pic The Daybreakers led the new films with a decent fourth place debut. Avatar, meanwhile, showed enough strength around the world that it has now put Titanic's all-time records in jeopardy.Tripling its nearest competitor's grosses, Fox's Avatar enjoyed yet another remarkable frame on top taking in $50.3M, according to final studio figures, as the 24-day cume skyrocketed to an unbelievable $430.8M. Its 27% decline was the smallest of any film in wide release proving that the 3D adventure is still pulling in moviegoers even after the close of the busy holiday season. In its fourth round, Avatar is still averaging a muscular $14,701 per theater. Generating sizable grosses during the holidays is common, but to remain this strong in January is uncommon.
The decline is especially impressive since Friday last weekend was the New Year's holiday which boosted business for all films. Compared to last weekend's daily numbers, Friday this weekend fell by 48% but Saturday slipped by only 18% while Sunday dipped by just 9%. Saturday's $21.3M was incredibly strong this weekend as the 60% increase from Friday's $13.3M was tops among all non-kiddie movies. In fact, Saturday was bigger than the entire weekend grosses for any other film. Titanic and Star Wars Episode I also enjoyed supercharged Saturday grosses during their leggy runs. Avatar's performance is outstanding given that it is a male-skewing action film competing against the start of the NFL playoffs which featured games on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend.
Avatar's three-day tally was easily the biggest gross ever for any film in its fourth weekend of release beating the old $28.7M record from 2,746 sites of Titanic from this very same frame twelve years ago. At today's ticket prices, that would amount to $45M and it wasn't in 3D meaning the two films sold about the same amount of tickets at this stage of the release. The 3D adventure's third and fourth weekends now rank as January's two biggest weekend grosses ever. The month's biggest opening frame is $40.1M by 2008's Cloverfield. No other films, debuting or holdover, have ever broken $40M in a January session.
Avatar smashed the $400M mark on Saturday in just 23 days making it the second fastest movie in history behind The Dark Knight which only needed 18 days in 2008. After 24 days, the Pandora film is running a mere 2% behind the pace of the Joker flick which had amassed $441.6M at this same point in its run. By this Friday, Avatar should surpass the pace of Knight and eventually finish ahead of that film's monster $533.3M cume.
| # | Title | Jan 8 - 10 | Theaters | Cumulative | Distributor | ||||
| 1 | Avatar | $ 50,306,217 | 3,422 | $ 430,846,514 | Fox | ||||
| 2 | Sherlock Holmes | 16,585,327 | 3,626 | 165,153,093 | Warner Bros. | ||||
| 3 | Alvin and the Chipmunks: 2 | 16,566,489 | 3,641 | 178,451,165 | Fox | ||||
| 4 | Daybreakers | 15,146,692 | 2,523 | 15,146,692 | Lionsgate | ||||
| 5 | It's Complicated | 11,007,875 | 2,955 | 76,370,540 | Universal | ||||
| 6 | Leap Year | 9,202,815 | 2,511 | 9,202,815 | Universal | ||||
| 7 | The Blind Side | 7,531,467 | 2,880 | 218,978,376 | Warner Bros. | ||||
| 8 | Up in the Air | 7,159,294 | 2,218 | 54,800,688 | Paramount | ||||
| 9 | Youth in Revolt | 6,888,334 | 1,873 | 6,888,334 | Weinstein Co. | ||||
| 10 | The Princess and the Frog | 4,651,156 | 2,620 | 92,546,727 | Buena Vista | ||||
| 11 | The Imaginarium of Doctor... | 1,762,637 | 607 | 2,989,290 | Sony Classics | ||||
| 12 | Invictus | 1,722,246 | 1,340 | 33,506,889 | Warner Bros. | ||||
| 13 | The Twilight Saga: New Moon | 1,703,809 | 1,167 | 290,743,279 | Summit | ||||
| 14 | Nine | 1,614,900 | 1,060 | 16,837,007 | Weinstein Co. | ||||
| 15 | Did You Hear About the Morgans? | 1,546,172 | 1,820 | 28,346,423 | Sony | ||||
| 16 | The Young Victoria | 1,180,595 | 476 | 4,506,000 | Apparition | ||||
| 17 | 3 Idiots | 594,380 | 156 | 5,602,911 | Big Pictures | ||||
| 18 | Precious | 464,718 | 408 | 44,311,459 | Lionsgate | ||||
| 19 | Crazy Heart | 462,126 | 33 | 1,246,747 | Fox Searchlight | ||||
| 20 | Broken Embraces | 370,691 | 111 | 2,547,040 | Sony Classics |
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