Word: weekend
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...snowed in the rainforest yesterday, and the 10-ft.tall Smurfs of Avatar took the hit. James Cameron's science-fiction epic earned $73 million on its opening weekend at North American theaters, according to early studio estimates. That was more than the next 50 films combined, but still a bit less than the stratospheric predictions of some industry analysts, who were measuring Avatar against Cameron's last fiction feature, Titanic...
...Well, forget that. Titanic set records that may never be broken, including being the No. 1 box-office attraction for 15 consecutive weeks, from Dec. 1997 to the end of March 1998 - the weekend after it won a record-tying 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The sinking-ship drama finally racked up $600 million stateside, and twice as much abroad, for a $1.8 billion total theatrical take. That made it the all-time top-grossing movie (sixth in real dollars, after Gone With the Wind, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, E.T. and the 1956 The Ten Commandments...
...producers of Avatar will have to earn their return the new-fashioned way: by showing it in a fancy format and charging more for it. Moviegoers certainly paid Lexus prices to see the Cameron vehicle this weekend. A ticket for one adult at an IMAX 3-D performance of Avatar at Manhattan's Lincoln Square 13 costs $18.50 (plus $2 if you order through Fandango). Yet, even with higher admission fees, Avatar took in only half of what New Moon, the second episode in The Twilight Saga, did a month ago in its first weekend. Indeed, New Moon earned...
...white stuff, making traveling ill-advised; and some folks planning a Saturday night at the movies, especially The Big Movie, might have stayed home. There's only one problem with the Fox statement: it isn't true. A check of the numbers for the rest of this weekend's top 10 movies, on Box Office Mojo's daily chart, reveals that all of them sold more tickets on Saturday than on Friday. Only Avatar dipped, by 5%. And, whatever the weather, the overall box office was up a spectacular 58% from the same weekend last year, leading the 2009 tally...
...rest of the top 10, all the holdover movies slipped from a third to a half of their last-weekend take (The Blind Side holding the sturdiest), except for the Oscar favorite Up in the Air, which soared 30% by adding 103 venues to last week's 72; it amassed nearly as much per screen as Avatar, and at relative bargain-basement prices. One new romantic comedy in wide release was meant to lure a more mature demographic than Avatar, but attracted almost nobody. Did You Hear About the Morgans?, with Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant as a married...