Channing Tatum in Lasse Hallström's Dear John (top); John Travolta, Melissa Mars, Jonathan Rhys Meyers in From Paris with Love (bottom)
According to estimates provided by Box Office Mojo, Lasse Hallström’s romantic tearjerker Dear John, starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, topped the domestic box-office this weekend, with $32.4 million in ticket sales. Avatar came at a distance second, with $23.6 million. James Cameron's 3D sci-fier has grossed a total of $630 million after 52 days.
The $52 million John Travolta-Jonathan Rhys Meyers vehicle From Paris with Love earned a paltry $8.1 million ($2,983 per screen) on its opening weekend. Following in fourth place was Mel Gibson’s Edge of Darkness with $7 million, a 59.3 percent drop from the previous weekend. The $80 million revenge thriller has earned a very disappointing $29m after ten days.
At #5, Dwayne Johnson’s Tooth Fairy, co-starring Julie Andrews, had a — relatively speaking — surprisingly low attendance drop rate from last weekend: 35 percent. The fantasy comedy earned $6.5m for a total of $34 million after two and a half weeks.
The Kristen Bell-Josh Duhamel romantic comedy When in Rome was #6 with $5.5m, a 55.4 percent drop from last week, followed by Denzel Washington’s post-apocalyptic drama The Book of Eli with $4.8m (45.7 percent drop). Jeff Bridges‘ Crazy Heart, now playing at 813 theaters, was #8 with $3.6m, a good $4,457 per screen. Legion was next with $3.4m and $34.6 million to date.
Rounding out the top twelve were Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes ($2.63m), Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side ($2.6m), and George Clooney's Up in the Air ($2.35m).
The Oscar nominations announcement coupled with an increase in number of screens helped movies as diverse as Crazy Heart (580 more screens, a 58.1 percent increase), Carey Mulligan's An Education (above, 915K at 686 more screens, a 668 percent increase), Colin Firth's A Single Man ($631K at 137 more screens, a 14 percent increase), Gabourey Sidibe's Precious ($440K at 447 more screens, a 104 percent increase), Helen Mirren's The Last Station ($371K at 42 more screens, a 337 percent increase), and Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon ($132K at 4 more screens, a 12.9 percent increase).
Up in the Air is playing at 117 more screens than last week. Even so, the comedy-drama dropped 16.7 percent; a relatively small reduction, but a reduction nevertheless. The Blind Side lost 11 screens and had a small 13.9 percent drop.
The Oscars seem to have made little — if any — difference to the weekend's box-office performance of Avatar, The Princess and the Frog, Sherlock Holmes, The Lovely Bones, or Nine.
Photos: Dear John (Scott Garfield / Dear John, LLC); From Paris with Love (Nico Torres / Lionsgate); An Education (Kerry Brown / Sony Pictures Classics)