So what can we infer about Avatar‘s dominance for a sixth consecutive week? Is Avatar getting a boost because studios are unloading bad movies into theaters? The answer is an unequivocal yes. Weak competition means movie-goers would rather see aliens that loom so tall that they could be intergalactic champs at basketball. I mean did anyone really expect a sappy family-in-crisis tearjerker with the stars of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Mummy to dethrone Cameron’s opus? Or how about the one about a grown man as a tooth fairy. Instead of wondering how Avatar continues to make money, wonder why studios greenlight or pick up films with stupid concepts or are manipulative.
Finishing a distant second over the weekend was the Screen Gems release Legion. Gems’ titles are routinely below $30 million in the cost department, so with an $18 million weekend, the “Angel with Guns” flick should make up the rest by next weekend. Like Lionsgate’s Daybreakers it seems that audiences are suckers for cheap thrills. Denzel Washington’s The Book of Eli is on the decline, one week after giving Avatar a run for its money. I expect a DVD announcement any day now.
And poor Dwayne Johnson. When he started making movies he was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Then, when he put up the wrestling tights (so he could be thought of more seriously as an actor), he dropped “The Rock.” But now the moniker is back. Why? It could be that he’s made a string of family films (The Game Plan, Race to Witch Mountain, and the starring voice in Planet 51) and now he needs the nickname to get his old wrestling fans out to watch his movies. With The Other Guys and Faster coming out later this year, at least “The Rock” will be escaping the PG realm for something that’s at least PG-13.
As the inaugural release of CBS Films, Extraordinary Measures had the look and feel of a CBS made-for-TV movie. From the director who gave us What Happens in Vegas, Measures would have been better off premiering on Lifetime instead of getting a release on more than 2500 screens. Up next from CBS films is the Jennifer Lopez rom-com The Back-Up Plan and Beastly which looks to bait the Twilight fans.
1. Avatar – $36 million ($553 mil.)
2. Legion – $18.2 million
3. The Book of Eli – $17 million ($62 mil.)
4. The Tooth Fairy – $14.5 million
5. The Lovely Bones – $8.8 million ($32 mil.)
6. Sherlock Holmes – $7.1 million ($192 mil.)
7. Extraordinary Measures – $7 million
8. Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel – $6.5 million ($204 mil.)
9. It’s Complicated – $6.2 million ($99 mil.)
10. The Spy Next Door – $4.8 million ($19 mil.)
Credit: Box Office Mojo
