2009 box-office Predix - Why not?

[MovieWes]

I would gladly take any of Cameron's films (including Pirahna 2: The Spawning) over any of Bay's films any day.

I don't know about that. I quite enjoyed The Rock, although I haven't seen it in years. I'm sure it's at least better than Piranha 2: The Spawning. But the rest of Bay's films are garbage.

[MovieWes]

My God! Avatar is a cultural phenomenon! It raked in another $19.4 million on Monday! Did James Cameron make a pact with the devil or something?

To put it into perspective, The Dark Knight's second Monday was only $10.5 million. It's the 2nd biggest non-holiday Monday in history, second only to The Dark Knight's first Monday.



Edited By MovieWes on 1262113914

[Hollywood Z]

But, at least you can respect Cameron. Unlike Michael Bay, Cameron's pop entertainment at least entertains and educates. Cameron is never dull, whereas Michael Bay redefines dull (along with stupid) and with that many explosions, dull being used to describe it is rather interesting, but still apt.

You've summarized my feelings about Bay being Cameron's rip off to the tee. Think about it, with Pearl Harbor, Bay seemed like he was trying to follow the same Titanic disaster formula: insert romance into disasterous event and have radio pop hit song on the radio. The only problem is, like you mentioned OG, Cameron's pop entertainment is never dull and entertains while educating. Bay always seems like he is trying to rush to the next explosion. I would gladly take any of Cameron's films (including Pirahna 2: The Spawning) over any of Bay's films any day.

[dreaMaker]

I'm guessing Avatar top $2 billion worldwide.

That would be so lovely!

[Greg]

I'm guessing Avatar top $2 billion worldwide.

[Greg]

For example, who would have thought an emo faux-vampire romance series with heavy Mormon religious overtones would have caught on like it has. . .

I guess New Moon just goes to show how many 9-14 year-old girls there are who want to watch Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner frolic without their shirts on; and, be scolded about it all in the same movie.

[dreaMaker]

Avatar became the highest grossing movie in its 2nd weekend, beating The Dark Knight.

[OscarGuy]

But, at least you can respect Cameron. Unlike Michael Bay, Cameron's pop entertainment at least entertains and educates. Cameron is never dull, whereas Michael Bay redefines dull (along with stupid) and with that many explosions, dull being used to describe it is rather interesting, but still apt.

[Hollywood Z]

By the way, I watched about 10 minutes of it the other day at Best Buy while I was finishing up my Christmas shopping, and from what I saw, it exceeded even my own expectations on how bad a movie like that can truly be. The second movie makes the original Transformers look like Citizen Kane by comparison.

I know what you mean. Someone explained it best to me when they said that people enjoyed the first Transformers because they were expecting it to be as good as the second one. It turned out to be okay, so it exceeded expectations, including my own for a Michael Bay film. Then the second one came out and let me tell you, my face felt like a Edvard Munch painting. Half way through the movie, I leaned over to my wife and said "the word stupid has just been redefined." I had to redo my ten worst movies of all time list after seeing it. Needless to say, whatever hope I had for Bay after the first Transformers was not just dashed, but incinerated in a fire along the scale of one of his textbooks cataclysmic explosions. Truly awful, vaccuous, audience-insulting trite that has no place making as much money as it did.

[Hollywood Z]

Avatar has landed. I kinda wish it was much better.

For what it's worth, though, I'll take it. We all know that Cameron's scripts aren't very deep (outside of Aliens and Terminator 2), but the man knows how to create a big screen spectacle, which is what I felt Avatar was. Sure, when the next big home theater revolution takes hold in another ten to fifteen years (3D Virtual Simulation Higher Definition Blu-Ray!!!!), Avatar may be looked back on like How the West was Won, Around the World in 80 Days or Cleopatra as gigantic big screen events that were purely eye candy. That's when we really begin to show our age by explaining to the young people of that generation "Yeah, but you should have seen it on the big screen the first time. Back when 3D was something revolutionary".

[Sabin]

Avatar, likewise, is finding itself in a similar situation, and that is the birth of the 3D revolution.

You hit the nail on the head. To combat TV in the 50's, movies got big. To combat VHS, studios capitalized on franchises you wouldn't want to see on the small screen. And now that we have DVDs, laptops, On Demand, etc., what can you do in theaters you can't at home? 3D. Avatar has landed. I kinda wish it was much better.

[MovieWes]

I think that the big question concerning Avatar is whether or not it will have the legs to keep it performing at pre-2000 levels. The thing about Titanic was that it came out during a unique time in movie history: the birth of the megaplex. At the time it came out, 30 screen cineplexes were just starting to become the norm, and there weren't enough movies coming out to fill all the screens. That being the case, Titanic, which, of course, was THE big movie at the time, took up the majority of the biggest screens. It also didn't hurt that absolutely nothing came out between December and April, helping it generate $25 million weekends week after week. It also came out at a time when DVD, a brand new technology, was nothing more than a tiny niche market and home theaters were unaffordable to everyone but the super-wealthy.

Avatar, likewise, is finding itself in a similar situation, and that is the birth of the 3D revolution. Granted, it's probably nothing on the scale of Titanic, but it will be interesting to see how the 3D aspect helps its legs. It could have a longer shelf life than most movies, including The Dark Knight (which, as visually impressive as it was, was still a 2D motion picture), because there aren't any home theater systems equipped with the RealD technology required to show off the 3D effects, and it will probably be at least 10 years before it's made available to the public. In the case of Avatar, even Blu-ray will be a major step down from the movie theater experience.



Edited By MovieWes on 1261980232

[Franz Ferdinand]

Another shining aspect of the weekend is Robert Downey Jr. After his wilderness years and 28 years of acting with no $100M hits, he now has (or will by next May's Iron Man 2) four $100M grossers in two years, two out of three over $200M (not including his cameo in The Incredible Hulk). Great story for him.



Edited By Franz Ferdinand on 1261974776

[Franz Ferdinand]

Exceptional weekend. It's actually shocking to think that this is the final weekend of the decade - only fitting that this decade, which has seen box office takes expand exponentially, is sent off with such a huge bang, the biggest weekend in Hollywood history. That's serendipity.

And now we can all take solace that of the three movies that grossed $70M in their second weekends - being Dark Knight, Shrek 2, and Spider-Man - all three finished well north of $400M. The fourth one should follow suit, meaning that we can celebrate a defeat for Transformers 2!

It'll be interesting to see where Avatar ends up now. We can definitely put it down for $1B worldwide, but how high domestically? I think two weekends from now will be the telling point, how it handles a non-holiday - but even this weekend, with the three new movies gobbling up $155M themselves, it thrived based on great reviews and excellent word-of-mouth. This might become a very high-grossing movie indeed.



Edited By Franz Ferdinand on 1261974405

[Sonic Youth]

Merry Xmas in Hollywood: Box-office record falls
By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer
Sun Dec 27, 4:45 pm ET

NEW YORK – It was a memorable and merry Christmas in Hollywood as moviegoers shattered box-office records, responding in droves to a diverse array of high-profile releases over the holiday weekend.

The estimated $278 million in weekend box-office revenue broke the previous record of roughly $253 million set in July 2008, the weekend "The Dark Knight" was released.

A diverse group of films drew throngs to the multiplexes: James Cameron's "Avatar" pushed strongly into its second week while "Sherlock Holmes," "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" and "It's Complicated" all opened.

"Avatar," the 3-D epic, topped them all, earning $75 million for 20th Century Fox, according to studio estimates Sunday. Remarkably, that was only a 3 percent drop from its opening weekend total of $77.4 million. (Blockbusters typically drop 30-50 percent in the second weekend.) In its 10 days of release, "Avatar" has made $212 million domestically — and could be on its way to a worldwide gross of over $1 billion.

"This thing is going to be playing and playing, I can tell you that," said Bert Livingston, 20th Century Fox distribution executive. "There's a lot of business out there. Everybody's got good movies out."

In second was "Sherlock Holmes," Guy Ritchie's reboot of the franchise with Robert Downey Jr. starring as Arthur Conan Doyle's detective. The Warner Bros. film opened with a weekend total of $65.4 million, including a record Christmas Day debut of $24.9 million.

It was a start that seemed sure to pave the way for sequels. Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., called the result "sensational."

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel," which opened Wednesday, took in $50.2 million on the weekend and $77.1 million in its five days of release. The film, also from Fox, earned an impressive $18.8 million on Wednesday alone. The strong start suggested that "Squeakquel" was likely to surpass its 2007 original, which made $217 million.

Also opening was Nancy Meyer's "It's Complicated," the romantic comedy starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. With an audience 72 percent female, the Universal film took in $22.1 million, a solid debut.

The sparkling Christmas weekend results spelled good things for all the films in release in the coming week — one of the most lucrative of the year.

"We all know what next week means to the industry. This is ... huge," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal. "Christmas is past us. No more shopping, no more returning. College kids are home. ... I'm so optimistic about what the next weekend holds for us."

Said Livingston: "Starting this Monday, every day is a Saturday."

Two films with Oscar aspirations also released wide over the weekend: Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air" (Paramount) and Rob Marshall's "Nine" (Weinstein Co.).

"Up in the Air," which has some of the best awards momentum, grossed $11.8 million, bringing its cumulative total to $24.5 million — already nearly earning back its production budget.

"For us, this movie was always the movie that we felt was going to be a real focus during the awards season," said Rob Moore, Paramount vice chairman. "It feels like this should have a long run as awards season continues."

"Nine," the adaptation of the Broadway musical (which itself was a riff of Federico Fellini's classic film "8 1/2") earned $5.5 million in 1408 theaters.

"It's an absolutely fitting end to the biggest box office year of all time," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "It's just been a total roller coaster ride. It's like audience members are on board."

2009 still has several days to go, but the year is already a record for domestic ticket sales with more than $10 billion at the box office. That surpassed the $9.7 billion mark of 2007.

While some of the credit has to go the recession (movies historically do well in hard times when a trip to the movie theater is a relatively cheap form of entertainment and escapism), there was a feeling Sunday that Hollywood had put forth a better product this Christmas.

"People say it's the recession," said Dergarabedian. "It's the movies — it's really the movies. It seems like when people aren't at home, they're at the movies."

He added: "You're going to find a smile on the face of every studio chief out there today."

Hollywood also seemed to be offering good ol' spectacle to moviegoers. "Avatar" grossed $8.8 million in IMAX theaters, actually increasing from its opening weekend. IMAX chairman and president Greg Foster said they were operating essentially at capacity.

"There is no context," said Foster. "It's so far beyond where we've ever been. It's not eking past a record, it's shattering it."

Christmas weekend was also neatly organized around various demographics. There was science-fiction, romantic comedy, family fare, action-packed thriller and serious awards-contender.

"That's what fueled this Christmas, the diversity of the films," said Dergarabedian. "It was like a cinematic buffet line. If you can't find a movie that you like in the marketplace right now, you don't like movies."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Avatar," $75 million.

2. "Sherlock Holmes," $65.4 million.

3. "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel," $50.2 million.

4. "It's Complicated," $22.1 million.

5. "Up in the Air," $11.8 million.

6. "The Blind Side," $11.7 million.

7. "The Princess and the Frog," $8.7 million.

8. "Nine," $5.5 million.

9. "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" $5 million.

10. "Invictus," $4.4 million.