Records and Milestones for the Week of March 1
Posted by Ethan on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 in Box Office Updates • Weekend • (0) Comments • Permalink •
The biggest milestone belonged to Avatar, which was the first movie to ever reach $700M domestically. Its total stands at $706.6M, after eleven straight weeks in the Top Five with a per-theater average of over $5,000 each frame. Overseas, it’s been #1 for eleven weeks reaching a total of $1.84B – more than Titanic in its entire international run.
Valentine’s Day currently sits at $99.9M and will be the first film of 2010 to hit nine digits today. Shutter Island will most likely be the second film of the year to reach $100M – unless Alice in Wonderland beats it to the punch. With the top three films all rated R, Alice will be a gust of fresh, family-friendly air for multiplexes.
R-rated new releases Cop Out and The Crazies performed decently. Cop Out, not surprisingly, was Kevin Smith’s biggest opening and will be his highest-grossing film. For Bruce Willis, Cop Out continues his streak of never hitting #1. He hasn’t starred in a #1 film in a decade (Sin City was more of an ensemble piece), since The Whole Nine Yards. He has managed two $30M+ openings this decade, however.
Oscar nominees are finally showing some strength at the box office as the awards show is right around the corner. An Education, A Single Man, and The Young Victoria all had the smallest drops of their run. The Messenger had a huge 78% jump despite only adding six theaters. Its per-screen average is its highest in three months.
Aside from the continued durability of Avatar, The Blind Side has yet to be tackled. This week it only dipped 15%. Except for the notoriously sluggish post-Thanksgiving frame, the film has not dropped more than 37% in a single weekend. It will most certainly reach $250M. Can it out-gross Star Trek’s $257.7M cume to become the #7 film of 2009?
Finally, on the foreign film front, Oscar nominee A Prophet debuted stateside to $170K from 9 theaters. Its $18,889 average is just a hair behind The White Ribbon’s debut average of $19,949. That film, winner of the cinematography award from the ACS this weekend, declined only 6% and sits at $1.5M, more than last year’s winner Departures.