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.