Weekend Box-Office [Dec. 18-20]

By Chase Kahn

Weekend of December 18th
1. Avatar (20th Century Fox) $73 million
2. The Princess and the Frog (Buenva Vista) $12.2 million
3. The Blind Side (Warner Bros.) $10 million
4. Did You Hear About the Morgans? (Sony/Colombia)$7 m
5. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Summit) $4.3 million
6. Invictus (Warner Bros.) $4.1 million
7. A Christmas Carol (Buena Vista) $3.4 million
8. Up in the Air (Paramount) $3.1 million
9. Brothers (Lionsgate) $2.6 million
10. Old Dogs (Buena Vista) $2.2 million


First off, I went to see Avatar again today and I have to admit that it played better a second time. I rolled with it a little, felt a little more enveloped by it and a little more persuaded, but I haven't crossed-over in the slightest. It still hassuch a painfully cliche and formulaic script laced with bad dialogue and broad characterizations - plus James Horner's score is the worst kind of thing that defies description, it's bad. And the Leona Lewis song, "I See You" is embarrasing. White bread, etc, etc.

Today, I don't absolutely hate the film, yesterday I did. I don't know - I'll let it sink in, but I most definitely know this isn't one of the 20-30 best films of the year. No way.

Anyway, it made $73 million this weekend, which is pretty solid (within the realm of expectations) but everyone in the biz knows that what Avatar does next weekend and the week after and the week after is where the truth lies. Can this thing have Titanic legs? Not a chance, but maybe Blind Side legs.

The Princess and the Frog dipped a pretty steep 50% and looks poised to underwhelm through the holidays - especially with the Chipmunk Squeakquel (or whatever the hell it is) coming out on Wednesday (12.23). Disney's animated, CG-less throwback is most certainly not a hit.

The Blind Side is still making money, yes. It's now over $160 million domestically - good god, make it stop! Meanwhile the repugnant looking Did You Heart About the Morgans? tried and failed miserably to gain the yuppie/older/counter-Avatar demo. With It's Complicated out on Christmas, this thing is deader than dead (I'm pretty sure that's a Charlaine Harris novel). But that's what you get when you name a movie after a question.