Posted on 02/06/2010 8:32:45 PM PST by max americana
FRIDAY PM/SATURDAY AM UPDATE: So Avatar was done in by a chick flick no less! Despite the monster winter storm on the East Coast, Relativity's sappy military-themed love story Dear John headed to a much bigger than expected $13.8 million opening Friday from 2,969 North American theaters. Which means the movie, a military love story based on the Nicholas Sparks novel and distributed by Sony/Screen Gems, will definitely break Avatar's 7-week reign atop the domestic box office Friday despite higher 3D ticket prices. G.I. Joe's Channing Tatum and Mamma Mia!'s Amanda Seyfried are on course for a $32M weekend compared to Avatar's expected $23M. "It's not only the dragon slayer, but by a lot," one Sony exec gushed to me. "The only question that remains is if we're the all time biggest Super Bowl weekend opener topping Hannah Montana at $31.1M."
Twentieth Century Fox's technopic took in $6.1M Friday (-18%, another amazing hold) for a predicted $629M cume that's broken every highest grossing record in Hollywood and the world. Avatar should post the better Saturday number, but in any case it won't be 8enough to overcome the big lead established Friday. Dear John's overperformance is due to several factors: A running time of only 102 minutes, which offset the higher ticket prices for Avatar which clocks in at 160 minutes.
And some great field marketing by Jeff Blake and his team, including military family screenings at installations like Fort Bragg.
(Excerpt) Read more at deadline.com ...
I couldn’t make it through 20 minutes of Avatar.
My nephew owns a theater so I can see it for free, but this one was a yawn fest.
I don’t like obvious CGI. If I want to watch cartoons I’ll turn on Boomerang.
I have no interest in Avatar nor its leftist propagandizing. I don’t care how many people say how great this latest shove down our throats pop culture piece of tripe is, I have ZERO interest in seeing it.
Awesome. I thought the commercials made it look pro-military, but didn’t trust them. Now I know for sure.
I haven’t seen Avatar due to the pointless, military-bashing crap I’ve heard about it, but, uh, one only has to look at the box office, and how long it’s been out, to see that it didn’t get its ass kicked.
I can’t watch any movie made from a Nicholas Sparks novel.
Heh.. I heard a review of ‘Dear John’ on the radio today and the reviewer said the movie tried too hard to be tear-jerky and ended up being an eye-roller instead.
As much as it pains me..the SOB made a billion on Avatar...enough loot to continue his slime!! As long as he can pull billion dollar flicks he will continue his anti-establishment, and anti-military garbage! :(
Was it Roger Ebert?
No, it was Bill Wine, on KYW 1060 News Radio in Philly. He’s been around for decades and is a very good movie reviewer in my opinion.
I saw From Paris with Love and I really liked it. The violence is a bit cartoonish, but it is was interesting to see a film on the US government taking down a terrorist cell in Eurabia.
Thanks for that. There was a thread that showed it’s a pro American movie..in France. Luc Besson (from Taken’) is a closet conservative. I will be watching it with my GF..as long as I shake her away from watching Dear John this Tuesday. Relationships.
If you go, let me know what you think. It is not great film, but it was entertaining. I found it quite funny in many scenes.
Interesting. For some reason, I had it in my noggin’ that Lasse Hallstrom (the director of Dear John) had a beef with the U.S. on a number of issues. Might be wrong about that.
Either way, he’s a good director. Chocolat was well done, and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape was outstanding. I skipped The Cider House Rules.
I got dragged into watching Chocolat by an ex-GF, but I admit, it was enjoyable.
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