Audiences swoon for 'Valentine's Day'

By Sarah Sluis

Valentine's Day swept the holiday weekend with an estimated $66.8 million gross over the four-day period, exceeding industry expectations. The timely romantic comedy built on its audience through the weekend, peaking on the titular Sunday holiday before dropping by half on Monday. The movie handily beat the $52 million box-office record for President's Day weekend, set by Ghost Rider in 2007. With an expired holiday in the title, the movie's week-over-week future is more uncertain, but its strong opening created a high mountain to slide down.

The Wolfman and Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief were neck and neck through Sunday, with about $31 million apiece, but Percy Jackson pulled ahead during the Monday school holiday to finish with $38.7 million for the four-day weekend. Given The Wolfman's multiple delays and underwhelming reviews, Universal is probably breathing easy about its $36.4 million opening weekend--even if it isn't close to recouping the movie's $100 million-plus production costs.

Directed by Chris Columbus (who kicked off the Harry Potter series), Percy Jackson, which is based on a series of children's books, could still be the beginning of a film franchise. However, the scale may have been too large. With a $95 million production budget, this movie seems to have been imagined for a Harry Potter-size audience instead of one much smaller, and a $38 million opening weekend won't be enough to make a film that expensive worthwhile.

Beyond the top ten, Fox Searchlight scored an impressive debut with My Name is Khan, a Bollywood production about "an Indian in America battling the double whammy of living with Asperger's Syndrome and as a Muslim man in the post-9/11 world," according to the THR review by Kirk Honeycutt. The romantic drama placed thirteenth with a $2.2 million estimated gross over the four-day weekend. With a targeted 120-theatre release, I suspect that Fox Searchlight cherry-picked its locations based on data from the run of Slumdog Millionaire, the Indian-themed movie that swept the Oscars last year.

Searchlight also placed a film in the top ten with Crazy Heart, which expanded to 1,005 locations and brought in $4.2 million for a ninth place finish. The movie, which stars Jeff Bridges in an Oscar-nominated role, has seen the biggest box-office boost due to its nominations, in part because it released just before the Oscar cutoff date and is still a fresh title.

Among returning films, Avatar headed the pack with a $30 million gross over four days, propelling the movie up 31% from last week (for four days) and 3% (for three days).

Even with tough competition from Valentine's Day, romantic weepie Dear John held on with another $18.8 million. Kid-friendly Tooth Fairy benefited from family crowds on Monday and dropped just 9% to $7.7 million.

This Friday, another delayed movie, Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, will make its debut into a wide-open field. Only holdovers and small releases, including a four-theatre unveiling of Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer, will serve as competition.

'Dear John' ousts 'Avatar' from top spot

By Sarah Sluis

Dear John opened to an impressive $32.4 million over the Super Bowl weekend. The debut marks the highest opening for a Nicolas Sparks adaptation. His sentimental romances combine the heartland appeal of a movie like The Blind Side with the fangirl interest seen in successes like Twilight. Perception of quality, too, influenced its box office. While critics called out the film for its sentimentality and heavy-handedness, its 30% rating at Rotten Tomatoes means it's not terrible. Last year over Super Bowl weekend, older-skewing and poorly reviewed romantic comedy New in Town opened to only $6.7 million, so watch-ability makes a difference. Provided that the largely female audience isn't worn out by the genre, the high opening bodes well for the The Last Song, a Nicolas Sparks adaptation starting Miley Cyrus that opens March 31st.

Avatar came in about $10 million lower than Dear John, even with nine Oscar nominations singing its praises. However, with a small drop of 24% from last week, this movie is still in for the long haul. As its gross continues to dip below the $23.6 million it earned this week, it will be beaten by other promising films' opening weekends.

From Paris with Love didn't get much action, with just $8.1 million in its opening weekend. The movie did more business Saturday than Friday, indicating a lack of anticipation and an older-skewing audience less likely to join the packs of teenagers in theatres Friday night.

Many of the Oscar-nominated films expanded their runs over the weekend, rising 50-600% from the previous week. With a Best Actor nomination for Jeff Bridges (who I will always love as "The Dude"), Crazy Heart broke into the top ten with a $3.6 million gross that grabbed eighth place. Since the movie is a relative newcomer with just eight weeks in release, it increased just 58%, much smaller than its peers that have been out for several months.

An Education (18 weeks in release) increased 668% from last week to bring in $915,000. The Last Station, which received nominations for Best Actress (Helen Mirren) and Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Plummer), increased 337% to $371,000. Precious tripled the number of theatres in its release for an increase of 104% from last week, $440,000. The Messenger, which also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination (Woody Harrelson), went up 14% for a tiny $20,500 gross. Colin Firth's Best Actor nomination led to a 14% bump for A Single Man, which earned $631,000. The White Ribbon, a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, rose12%to $132,000.

This weekend, Valentine's Day meets the three-day President's Day weekend, and aptly titled Valentine's Day, kid-actioner Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and The Wolfman will all vie for the box-office crown.

Oh Avatar, oh Avatar, lead audiences to Pandora

By Sarah Sluis

Leading the pack this week is Avatar (3,300 theatres), a blockbuster that delivers on its promise to wow you. Even if you come into the theatre a little bit of a disbeliever, you will walk out thrilled and satisfied in a way you haven't been for a long time. Director James Cameron uses his state-of-the-art technology to create a movie that critic Ethan Alter called "the ultimate pulp sci-fi novel." It's also a take-off of the Pocahontas tale. Cameron first wows you with the technical achievements of the year 2154--portable computer tablets, futuristic 'copters, and coffin-like "link stations"--before turning your attention to the Na'vi, who display a similarly detailed, technical mastery over the natural world instead of the mechanical world. Add in romance and some spectacular battle scenes, and Fox should have its end-of-year blockbuster.

Providing some counterprogramming for women, Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2,700 theatres) is a by-the-book romantic comedy with some mild laughs. Inoffensive and pleasing through its duration, the movie is expected to draw in females not enticed by Avatar. Fans of "Sex and the City" will be pleased to see a continuation of that persona in Parker's character, who loves all things New York City, to the predictably comic extremes.

Crazy Heart (4 theatres) also makes its limited debut this weekend. "Although the film offers the [lead] character a too-glib redemption (and no-fuss rehab) before sending him off into a feel-good sunset," critic Rex Roberts feels it nevertheless deserves recognition. Indeed, this week the country music drama earned two nominations at the Golden Globes: Best Actor for Jeff Bridges and Best Original Song. Bridges has been nominated for four Oscars (though, surprise, not for his role in the comedy The Big Lebowski), so the Academy may deem it time to reward ones of its perennial nominees-- one with "an uncanny ability to make pot-bellied rogues curiously sexy."

Nine (4 theatres) parades into theatres after receiving decidedly mixed reviews filled with many of the caveats that are unique to the difficult musical category. Despite running at 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, the Broadway adaptation received five nominations for the Golden Globes earlier this week. Our critic David Noh marveled at the non-misogynistic treatment of women in a story centered around a man and the many women who matter to him. "Marshall clearly adores women," Noh writes, "and he glorifies each carefully cast lady in his film in a way not seen since the Hollywood studio glory days."

Avatar should finish in the 50, 60, 70 million range (Fox is trying to underplay expectations) and play strongly through the next two weeks, when many people are on holiday from work and school. Did You Hear About the Morgans? should be light competition, and could suffer from the strong showing of The Blind Side, which has a lot of word-of-mouth momentum. Avatar needs a strong opening weekend to stave off the competition ahead. Next week, the sci-fi movie will go head-to-head with Sherlock Holmes, It's Complicated will try to woo away the female audience, and let's not forget the allure of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.