Word: films
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Hollywood gave audiences what they wanted, and moviegoers returned the favor by giving the film industry its favorite present: a record-breaking frame at the box office. According to early studio estimates, North Americans spent some $263 million at theaters this Christmas weekend, obliterating the $254 million mark set in July 2008, when The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! both opened. And what did the multiplex crowds want on the first days of Christmas? Sing along: foreplay from Meryl, three sassy rodents, two blue Pandorans and a sleuth with a killer right hook. (See TIME's 2009 holiday movie preview...
...surest indication of a new Christmas Day ritual: Americans rip open their presents, gulp down the turkey dinner, speed-kiss their relatives goodbye and rush off to the multiplex. Or maybe the whole family goes - the kids to Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel; young males to the action film Sherlock Holmes; older females to see Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin in It's Complicated; and just about everyone sampling James Cameron's enviro-alien epic, Avatar. The record $85 million amassed on Friday accounts for a lot of tickets, even given the $18.50 price that Avatar...
...director's five previous features have taken in a total of about $40 million at the North American box office. He achieved success both by turning Holmes from a contemplative sort into an action hero, and by filling the role with Robert Downey Jr., who has proved his action-film bona fides as the star of Iron Man. Budgeted at a reasonable $90 million, Sherlock is now a cinch for a sequel. And no question that Alvin will be back for a shriekquel, or a threatquel - anyway, a threequel...
...weekend box-office results were like the prizes a school gives to all sports competitors: everyone's a winner! The one exception was Nine, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a film director at a crisis in his life and career, and five Oscar-laden actresses dressing up this musical version of Federico Fellini's 8½. The picture earned $5.5 million in 1,412 theaters - a slow start for a film meant to give the ailing Weinstein Company a life-saving box-office boost. Movies about movies are rarely big hits (audiences want to eat the sausage...
...Three guys jumped on a Basiji," one man described to his companions, "Everyone around was yelling, 'Film it! Film...