On Monday, Jan. 18, Avatar dominated the US/Canada box office with $11.6 million in ticket sales, according to estimates provided by Box Office Mojo. That was more than twice the amount grossed by the #2 film on the chart, Denzel Washington's post-apocalyptic vehicle The Book of Eli ($5.6m). Avatar's total currently stands at $504.8m.
The #3 movie on the chart for the Martin Luther King holiday was Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, with $2.42m. A major drop is to be expected for today, as children have returned to school. The #4 film was another kiddie flick, Jackie Chan's The Spy Next Door, with $3.15m. Perhaps the latest Chan vehicle will not become the total dud I was expecting — or perhaps it will. Its total to date is $12.87m.
Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, which earned star Saoirse Ronan the best young actress Critics Choice Award on Friday, was #5 with $2.9m. In addition to Ronan, the metaphysical crime thriller stars Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Stanley Tucci, and Susan Sarandon.
Rounding out the top ten were Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, with $2.1m; the Meryl Streep-Alec Baldwin-Steve Martin romantic comedy It's Complicated, with $1.5m; plus, Sandra Bullock's The Blind Side ($1.4m), Disney's The Princess and the Frog ($1.2m), and the Amy Adams-Matthew Goode romantic comedy Leap Year ($1.1m).
At #15, the Robert Pattinson-Kristen Stewart-Taylor Lautner drama The Twilight Saga: New Moon added $205K for a total of $292.4m. I wonder if it'll manage to reach the $300m mark. Perhaps not likely, but not impossible.
Photo: Stephen Lang in Avatar (WETA / 20th Century Fox)