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AVATAR wins weekend box office, along with everything ever (almost)

Kate Erbland

by: Kate Erbland
January 10th, 2010

If things keep going like this, soon I will have to rename the Weekend Box Office something purely AVATAR-centric. The Weekend AVATAR Report. The Weekend AVATAR Won Again, Duh Wrap-Up. The Weekend We Get It, James Cameron, We Really Get It, Fine! Check-in. Guess what? AVATAR won the box office again. Let's talk about it.

For the fourth weekend in a row, AVATAR has won top spot at the box office. The film made $48.5 million this weekend, bringing its domestic gross to $429,040,000. Worldwide, James Cameron's opus has made $1,331,140,000. That's 1.3 billion, baby. It's the number one grosser for a 2009 film (sorry, TRANSFORMERS), the number one 3D film of all-time, and it also now holds the top spot for second, third, and fourth weekends. Oh, and guess what! It's also now the number 2 worldwide grosser of all-time (of all-time).

Even more shocking than the bloodbath AVATAR has unleashed on the box office and Pandora (oops, spoiler alert?) is the fact that people keep releasing other movies to go against it! Silly studios! Kidding. Sort of. In a traditional month of "film-dumping," the weekend's openers were a strange mix - a rom-com, a genre flick, and another Michael Cera-starrer (I prefer Jesse Eisenberg, if anyone cares).

The Spierig brothers' first big feature, DAYBREAKERS, pulled in a nifty fourth place, with $15 million. It looks as if the film has benefited from positive buzz (including from GATW, et. al) to get butts into theaters. That, and also probably lots of dudes who were subjected to TWILIGHT and NEW MOON by their ladies and are now looking to even the score. With a budget of $20 million, this is very good news for the Spierigs, and I send them some serious congratulations.

Amy Adams' LEAP YEAR landed with a resounding thud in sixth place, not even cracking $10 million. Whereas DAYBREAKERS probably made the scrilla thanks to good reviews, LEAP YEAR definitely lost its audience to some harsh reviews across the board - it's currently got a rating of 16% Rotten on Rotten Tomatoes. Eeesh!

Long-pushed back Michael Cera flick (vehicle? maybe?) YOUTH IN REVOLT opened to ninth place in less with 2,000 theaters. The film made a tidy $7 million and kept up hopes that Cera's career isn't dead after the travesty that was YEAR ONE.

In additional "oops, we really screwed this one up" news, after four weeks in theaters, NINE has failed to crack $20 million in domestic returns. The flick's budget? $80 million. Yup. Oops.

Next week - AVATAR will make $762 million on a Tuesday alone, the world will crown James Cameron king, and Academy members everywhere will simultaneously black out and nominate Zoe Saldana for a Best Actress nomination.

Check out the rest of the weekend's box office at Box Office Mojo and continue to not be surprised in the slightest.

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