Avatar Dominates Fourth Straight Weekend

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Posted January 10th, 2010 at 11:16 am

Continuing its extraordinary run Avatar pulled in another $48.5 million this weekend nearly tripling the amount made by any other movie. What is even more remarkable about that amount is that it represents a drop of just 29%. That would be an amazingly small drop following any weekend let alone a holiday weekend.

Many had wondered how Avatar would hold up once everyone went back to school and work and the results are showing that the movie is here to stay. There is no doubt now it will challenge both the domestic ($600 million) and worldwide ($1.8 billion) records that are held by Titanic. Currently Avatar has made $429 million domestically for a worldwide total of over $1.2 billion.

The top new movie at the box office was Daybreakers which made $15 million. That put it right in line with expectations. Daybreakers has gotten relatively good reviews and moviegoers have responded well to it as it has a very high 8.2 rating on IMDB right now. There was a decent level of marketing but it came across somewhat generic so whether word-of-mouth will provide a boost remains to be seen.

The other new entries included the comedies Leap Year which drew $9 million and Youth in Revolt which was able to come up with $7 million. They both had somewhat limited appeal but Leap Year had higher potential considering how well female targeted comedies have traditionally done this time of the year.

1 – Avatar $48.5 ($429.0)
2 – Sherlock Holmes $16.6 ($165.2)
3 – Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 $16.3 ($178.2)
4 – Daybreakers $15.0 (New)
5 – It’s Complicated $11.0 ($76.4)
6 – Leap Year $9.2 (New)
7 – The Blind Side $7.7 ($219.2)
8 – Up in the Air $7.1 ($54.7)
9 – Youth in Revolt $7.0 (New)
10 – The Princess and the Frog $4.7 ($92.6)