Well, the only question now seems to be just how high will Avatar go? On Thursday James Cameron’s latest crossed the $800 million worldwide mark and on New Year’s Day, Nikki Finke reports it brought in another $24 million, which will propel its domestic box-office tally to over $300 million. All in just two short weeks.
This weekend we were left to wonder just how far Avatar would fall after an impressive $75.6 million weekend last week. RopeofSilicon Box-Office Oracle, Laremy Legel, predicted a 35.7 percent drop and a weekend take of $48.6 million. Looks like he’s going to be low yet again as the $24 million on Friday means Avatar could be looking at a potential $60 million weekend and a mere 20-percent drop. Now that’s impressive. It also means it will have been tops at the box-office three weekends in a row, something no film in 2009 accomplished and technically neither has Avatar as we are now operating in 2010.
The film’s major competition in Sherlock Holmes brought in an estimated $15 million in its second weekend, which Finke predicts will translate to $36 million for the three day. The Warner Bros. feature was really the only film that stood a chance at challenging Avatar for that number one spot and it appears one film has the juice and the other is a typical 2009 blockbuster with what appears may be a 42 percent drop from last week.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel looks like it will be hitting the $150 million mark this weekend as it nabbed the third spot in the Friday estimates with $12 million, followed by It’s Complicated with an estimated $6.5 million Friday and a likely $16 million for the weekend.
The top five was rounded out by the continually impressive The Blind Side which has been a serious workhorse, now bringing in an estimated $4.2 million on Friday, which takes the film over the $200 million domestic mark. Not too bad, not too bad at all… And strangely enough, this top five mirrors last week’s top five exactly. Eerie eh?
The complete estimates provided by Finke are directly below. Stay tuned as Laremy will be here Sunday morning with a complete wrap-up.
- Avatar – $24 million
- Sherlock Holmes – $15 million
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel – $12 million
- It’s Complicated – $6.5 million
- The Blind Side – $4.2 million
- Up in the Air – $4 million
- The Princess and the Frog – $3.5 million
- Did You Hear about the Morgans? – $1.7 million
- Invictus – $1.5 million
- Nine – $1.5 million
