MLK weekend rewards 'The Book of Eli,' 'Avatar'

By Sarah Sluis

On Friday night, audiences turned out to see new release The Book of Eli, but by the end of the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, Avatar prevailed once again, earning an estimated $54.6 million over the four-day period.

Avatar enjoyed its fifth week at number one and picked up a couple of significant awards at the Golden Globes on Sunday: Best Picture (Drama) and Best Director for James Cameron. Not so shabby. My own parents tried to catch a matinee of the movie on Monday, but they, like dozens of other people in the lobby, were turned away by a sold-out show--with no more screenings for two and a half hours. They went to the beach rather than catch It's Complicated. Zing.

The Book of Eli, which opened second with an estimated $38 million over the four-day weekend, had a solid $11.6 million opening on Friday and rose to $11.7 million on Saturday before dropping off the next two days to $9 million and $5 million. By comparison, that exceptional beast Avatar did just $10.4 million on Friday, followed by $17, 15, and 11 million the next three days. That kind of rise over a weekend, which can also be seen in its second and fourth weekend, reveals some of the quirks of this long-running (in more than one way) movie. Word-of-mouth usually explains a rise over a movie's opening weekend, but length is a bigger factor here. The 2 hour, 40 minute running time appears to occupy theatres for 3 hours and 30 minutes (once trailers and clean-up is factored in). A 10 o'clock show on a Friday night isn't so appealing when you realize you'll get out at 1 a.m. (past many teenage curfews). The long running time, I suspect, accounts for Avatar's spike on Saturdays and Sundays, when more people attend matinees.

At number three, The Lovely Bones brought in $20 million when it expanded to 2,500 theatres. The showing was much better than I expected, given my disappointment in the literary adaptation, but a quick look reveals that the movie was able to keep its per-screen averages in the five digits during its five-week run in limited release. People, it appears, can be convinced to see the movie, especially given the heavy TV promos I saw (targeted, apparently, to younger women).

Lower down in the top ten, The Spy Next Door debuted at $13 million. The Jackie Chan movie seems like a Karate Kid permutation. I'll hold out for something closer to the real thing. The remake, which stars Jackie Chan and Will Smith's son, Jaden Smith, comes out on June 11th.

Of the films in the rest of the top ten, Up in the Air fell the least, just 7% to $6.6 million. The most-nominated movie at the Golden Globes came away with just one, for screenplay, but continues to charm audiences.

This Friday, horror film Legion will open along with Extraordinary Measures, a heartwarming true story in the tradition of The Blind Side, and The Tooth Fairy, a big-man-in-a-little-fairy-suit comedy.

MLK Weekend boosts 'Paul Blart,' 'Hotel for Dogs'

By Sarah Sluis

Schools, governments, and lucky company workers received the day off yesterday, and many chose to catch a matinee. Kid-themed Hotel for Dogs captured the elementary school crowd, and was the only film to have a "higher occupancy" rate on Monday than Sunday, earning $5.4 million on the holiday to

bring its four-day weekend gross to $22.5 million--a respectable fifth-place finish.

On Friday, I predicted teen audiences would go for comedy over horror, especially since horror flick The Unborn came out last week, and it turned out I was right. Paul Blart: Mall Cop Segwayed right to the top with $39 million, including healthy business on Monday, while My Bloody Valentine 3D came in third with $24.2 million, dampened by a lack of screens that forced some to view in 2D.

Sandwiched between the comedy and horror draws was Gran Torino, which dropped a mere 11% from last week (including Monday) to finish at $26.2 million. While Eastwood's film hasn't garnered as much awards season acclaim as, say, Million Dollar Baby, the movie has a solid 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (which draws in review-sensitive older women) and headliner Clint Eastwood, a star/director particularly popular with older males. Both have factored into the film's high attendance rates among older viewers.

Finishing just above Hotel for Dogs, B.I.G. biopic Notorious earned $24 million, along with the highest per-screen average of the top ten, a sign that distributors successfully targeted the release to draw in viewers. A quick search of New York City screenings, for example, revealed hourly showings at one Harlem theatre, as well as a multiplex far out in Brooklyn, not far from B.I.G.'s place of birth. The AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street, in the heart of New York City, had thirteen showings of Notorious, while only nine of Paul Blart: Mall Cop. For urban teens who do not count the mythical "Manhattan Mall" as one of their hangouts, it's no wonder Biggie played better than an overweight security guard.

The next five releases, holdovers from last week, posted below-average drops in box office once the Monday boost was factored in. Defiance, the Daniel Craig, Nazis-in-the-woods film, expanded this week to a respectable $5,000 per screen, earning a $10.7 million gross. Bride Wars, The Unborn, and Marley & Me posted in the $7 to $10 million range, and underdog Slumdog Millionaire continued its run as a hanger-on in the top ten. Its $7.1 million bested the take of the vastly more expensive The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which earned $6.6 million at the number eleven spot.

No Vacancy at the box office with 'Hotel for Dogs,' 'Bloody Valentine 3D'

By Sarah Sluis

The Martin Luther King box-office weekend frequently sees the release of horror, kid, and black-

oriented titles. This year, we have all three. The nepotism niece, Emma Roberts, stars in Hotel for Dogs (3,271 screens), the latest in a long string of canine titles that have swept the box office. In a recession, who better to turn to for comfort than man's best friend? The film riffs on a Lois Duncan children's novel of the same name, adding a foster children premise (what is it with children's books featuring orphans?) and "a pint-sized

engineer a la Kevin McCallister from Home Alone" (to quote our Ethan Alter). With no school on Monday, the film will be able to capitalize on the elementary-school set.

Mobilizing the males under 25 quadrant, My Bloody Valentine 3D (2,534 screens) and Paul Blart: Mall Cop (3,144 screens) will offer up the horror and comedy genres. Certainly, the novelty of seeing axes and fireballs being thrown at you in 3D (a thrill promised in the trailer) will make for good locker room water fountain chatter, but will teen boys pass up the chance to laugh at authority in Paul Blart: Mall Cop? A power-tripping mall cop on a Segway is certainly the bane of a food court loafer's existence. I can imagine a teen boy saying to his friend, 'Didn't we see The Unborn last weekend? Let's go for a comedy.' Unless, of course, the boys are already aware of that other mall cop flick hitting theatres soon, Seth Rogen's Observe and Report.

The Notorious B.I.G., of drug dealer to rapper fame, lived a crack-to-riches American Dream until he was gunned down in Las Vegas. Notorious (1,637 screens), releasing on the weekend honoring Martin

Luther King, and on the eve of Obama's inauguration, harkens back to the 1990s. As Teresa Wiltz from The Root noted, seeing the film is 'like time traveling back to the day when gangsta rap ruled, all bluster and bling, beef was settled with bullets and an XXL-sized brother from Brooklyn dazzled, if only for a moment." With Obama, King, and B.I.G. sharing the limelight this weekend, B.I.G.'s gangster success seems much less relevant than the achievement of our first black president.

For the foreign and Oscar loving audience, we have two Oscar expansions and three foreign/specialty releases. Defiance (expansion to 1,789 screens) and Last Chance Harvey (expansion to 1,054 screens) will both open in a multiplex (nearish) you. While neither of these well-reviewed films will sweep the Oscars, they have earned some awards attention (receiving one and two Golden Globe nominations, respectively) and good word-of-mouth. Chandni Chowk to China (130 screens) , which tackles the martial arts AND Bollywood genres, "should please fans of both genres ready to be happily assaulted for two-and-a-half hours," according to our critic, David Noh. If, of course, a "mulligatawny stew of a film that feels like it's been laced with liberal doses of acid" is right up your alley.

For NYC audiences, Cherry Blossoms, "a portrait of an aging couple" FJI critic David Noh found deeply imbued with "a strict humanist's compassionate observation," opens, along with Ballerina, a documentary of three professional dancers in the Russian Kirov Ballet. Both come recommended by Film Journal.

Stay tuned this weekend for posts from Sundance, courtesy of Daniel Steinhart.