Box Office: Avatar Dethroned by Dear John

For seven weeks Avatar was the top dog at the box office. That was until Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried dropped a romance called Dear John into theaters and teen girls everywhere went to see it. For the last two months Avatar has had little competition at box office and has been the number one movie since it was released on December 18th. This weekend I thought Avatar would make it eight weeks without a struggle ( I actually lost a bet on this); however I apparently underestimate the power of a Nicolas Spark’s novel and a Channing Tatum fan base. Dear John managed to pull in a whopping $30.4 million which is the highest Super Bowl weekend gross of all time. Avatar may have came in second place but it did so at a respectable $22.8 million. Keep reading for a full breakdown of the weekend box office.

Avatar was the favorite going into the weekend to make it eight weeks at number one. That was until Dear John made $13.7 million on Friday. At this point it was clear Avatar was not going to make it to number one. It didn’t help that it was Super Bowl weekend and that Sunday was going to be a day that mostly women would be at the movies.

If it wasn’t for Dear John’s huge Friday numbers Avatar would have gone number one again. Avatar beat John both Saturday and Sunday in the box office race.

The rest of the weekend box office looked like this:

John Travolta failed to find an audience with his action flick From Paris with Love. Directed by Taken’s Pierre Morel, Paris was a box office bomb.

Mel Gibson’s Edge of Darkness dropped to number four with $6.85 million. After two weeks of release Darkness has grossed $28.9 million.

The fifth spot went to The Tooth Fairy which brought in another $6.6 million over the weekend.

Here is a list of the top ten films at the weekend box office:

1 – Dear John (Sony) – $32.40 ($10,913) – $32.40
2 – Avatar (Fox) – $23.60 ($7,867) – $630.09
3 – From Paris with Love (Fox) – $8.12 ($2,983) – $8.12
4 – Edge of Darkness (Warner Bros.) – $7.01 ($2,285) – $29.10
5 – The Tooth Fairy (Fox) – $6.50 ($2,020) – $34.33
6 – When in Rome (Disney) – $5.50 ($2,241) – $20.90
7 – The Book of Eli (Warner Bros.) – $4.84 ($1,715) – $82.16
8 – Crazy Heart (Fox Searchlight) – $3.65 ($4,457) – $11.19
9 – Legion (Screen Gems) – $3.40 ($1,454) – $34.68
10 – Sherlock Holmes (Warner Bros.) – $2.63 ($1,457) – $201.58

Next weekend should see some big money makers with the arrival of The Wolfman, Valentine’s Day, and Percey Jackson. Check back next Monday for our weekend wrap up of the weekend box office.

Source: Box Office Mojo