Word: weekender
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...strategy of the folks at Screen Gems - the company that took on Dear John after New Line surrendered the property when the company got folded into its parent, Warner Bros. - was to open the movie on Super Bowl weekend, when American males, a big part of Avatar's constituency, were preoccupied with large men running, throwing and writhing in pain. Director Lasse Hallström, who has helmed such dewy fare as Chocolat, Something to Talk About and The Shipping News, gave the remaining femme audience the standard Harlequin cocktail of a handsome soldier (G.I. Joe's Channing Tatum...
...last time Avatar was not No. 1 in North American theaters was the weekend of Dec. 11-13, when the top spot went to the Disney animated feature The Princess and the Frog. That was another fish-out-of-water (or amphibian-in-the-bayou) love story, about a New Orleans girl who hopes to build her dream restaurant but is turned into a frog when she kisses a cursed prince. In Dear John, the hero meets his sweetheart by diving into a lake to retrieve her purse. The Sparks story has even more in common with Cameron...
...Still, don't weep for Avatar. Its 24.6% drop from the previous weekend was its steepest yet, but that's still minuscule compared with most movies. It also has a huge female fan base, as did Titanic, which TBS, in its own canny counterprogramming, is showing opposite the Super Bowl. Avatar is the all-time top grosser (in current dollars), it's still No. 1 worldwide, and it looks to stay strong through this year's Oscar bash (which is four weeks from today), where it will be a prime contender for Best Picture, Best Director and a slew...
...Dear John's eminence will be more fleeting, but it certainly escaped the ignominious-flop status of the weekend's other wide release, From Paris with Love. That John Travolta spy-action film earned only a quarter of Dear John's take. Another burly espionage melodrama, the Mel Gibson vehicle Edge of Darkness sank over 60% in its second frame. Meanwhile, the male-oriented Legion and The Book of Eli fell into the bottom half of the top 10, behind the frilly Kristen Bell romantic comedy When in Rome...
...movies in trouble; girls on top. It's enough to make industry analysts wonder if there's a place for male stars, and male audiences, at the box office - at least on Super Bowl weekend...