With winter storming through the East coast, 'Avatar' still broke records over the weekend, grabbing $77 million for first place at the box office. The film averaged a stellar $21,147 from 3,452 theaters.
While the number is impressive, keep in mind that in some areas ticket prices were enormously high when viewing on the IMAX. Tickets for the James Cameron-directed film in NYC were running at $18.50 each.
Playing on 2-D, and 3-D formats and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver, the film is expected to do well over the upcoming holidays, but it will take some time to determine if there's enough repeat business to come close to Cameron's 'Titanic' domestic gross, which took in over $600M back in 1997.
With parents keeping their kids at home amidst the snow, 'The Princess and the Frog' dropped to second place with a dismal $12.M. Dropping 50% from last week's take, the animated film, which stars Anika Noni Rose as the first Black Disney princess has grossed $44.8M thus far. With Fox's 'Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel' opening up this week, it will hard for 'Princess' to cross the '$100M plateau.
Coming in third place with $10M and still doing phenomenally well at the box office is the sleeper hit 'The Blind Side.' Starring Sandra Bullock, who scored Golden Globe and Screen Actor Guild nominations for her role, the gridiron film has taken in $164M and should cross the $200M mark in just a few weeks. With the success of 'The Proposal' this summer, Bullock was recently named one of Entertainment Weekly's entertainers of the year.
With poor reviews across the board, the Hugh Grant/Sarah Jessica Parker film 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' didn't do well at the gate, producing $7M from audiences. Rounding out the top five was 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon' with $4.4M. The vampire sequel from Summit Entertainment has grossed nearly $275M to date.
Opening in limited markets and with recent Golden Globes nominations, Rob Marshall's musical 'Nine' did an estimated $247,000 from only four theaters.
