'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.

'Dear John,' 'From Paris with Love' provide alternatives to the Super Bowl

By Sarah Sluis

Take out your seven-layer dip, it's Super Bowl weekend, when people forgo popcorn for hot wings around a 60-inch screen. On Sunday, movie ticket sales drop precipitously as TV ratings go sky-high. Replicating a formula from last year, studios are releasing both a female-oriented romance expected to play through the weekend, as well as an action movie to catch males Friday and Saturday before most settle in for the big game.

Dear John (2,969 theatres) "falls in the upper middle range" of Nicolas Sparks adaptations, according to New York Times critic A.O. Scott. Amanda Seyfried plays a goody-two-shoes who falls for a rough solider (Channing Tatum). They correspond for his year-long deployment, but then 9/11 happens, he re-enlists, and the romance suffers. Slate critic Dana Stevens, who wrote her review in the form of a Dear John letter, voices one of Seyfried's Little Ms. Perfect dilemnas: "Would I be able to organize enough fundraisers to keep him alive and one day realize my dream of opening a horseback-riding camp for autistic children?" With a built-in fan base of Nicolas Sparks readers, Dear John should make a sizeable sum at the box office this weekend.

From Paris with Love (2,722 theatres) releases exactly a year after director Pierre Morel's smash hit Taken. Though the movie tries to replicate the successful elements of the first movie, it doesn't quite work, according to FJI critic Daniel Eagan. Using that familiar veteran/rookie pair-up (played by John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, respectively), "the Travolta part...is played for laughs, while the rest pretends to deal seriously with matters of love and trust," leading to an inconsistent tone.

Not to be confused with District 9, District 13: Ultimatum, the sequel to District B13, will open in nine theatres. Director Luc Besson's action thriller "aims to please and nails its targets with more speed and style than most of its higher-priced competition," according to Eagan.

Taking advantage of the buzz generated at its Sundance debut, Frozen will open in 106 theatres. The Open Water-esque premise has three skiers stranded on a ski lift for a weekend. Unfortunately, the thriller is unable to "create a self-enclosed world that allows the audience to suspend disbelief," according to critic James Greenberg. Horror movies really need to solve that cell phone problem.

With the Oscar nominations released this Tuesday, four of the nominated films will expand their runs. The Hurt Locker, which is already out on DVD, will move onto 110 screens. Precious will go from 222 to 669 theatres. Crazy Heart will ramp up its release, going from 239 theatres to 819. An Education, which had dwindled to just a four-theatre run from 200 screens, will expand to 760 theatres this weekend. Adding something new to the mix, Oscar-nominated documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers will debut on two screens.

Of course, despite all these new offerings and Oscar-related expansions, Avatar is expected to win the box office for the eighth week in a row, with added interest due to its nine Oscar nominations.

Perturbed by Disturbia

By Sarah Sluis

Disturbia, last year's knockoff of Rear Window, a fact mentioned by every critic to review the film, Film Journal's included, has just been smacked with a lawsuit alleging that it ripped off the short story used for the plot of Rear Window.  DreamWorks (including its co-founder Steven Spielberg), its parent company Viacom, and Universal were named as defendants.  Given the similarity between the two films, it's embarrassing that this was just noticed.  In fact, a similar lawsuit was brought to court in 1998 by Sheldon Abend over television rights to Rear Window, so it's not as if this property has been lying unnoticed since 1954.  Abend, executive producer of Rear Window and owner of the rights, died in 2003, leaving Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust to do the job�and apparently the lawyers are sleeping on the job.

Mean Girls sidekick turned Mamma Mia! star Amanda Seyfried has taken a cue from her other Mean Girls co-star, Rachel McAdams (The Notebook), and signed onto a Nicholas Sparks adaption.  The film, Dear John, chronicles the romance between a do-gooder college student and a soldier on leave.  They fall in love the summer before 9/11, but their romance receives the ultimate test when John goes back overseas after the terrorist attacks.

Up in Toronto, the big news was Fox Searchlight's acquisition of The Wrestler.  With a nod to Mickey Rourke's has-been star persona, he plays a fading semi-pro wrestler who tries to connect with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and a similarly aging stripper (Marisa Tomei) as his success in the ring diminishes.  The film, which won the Golden Lion at Venice, will release in the U.S. this December.  Just in time for Oscar season�could this be another De Niro in Raging Bull?