Yes, this is your number one movie.
Numbers:
1. Dear John $32,400,000
2. Avatar $23,600,000
3. From Paris with Love $8,120,000
4. Edge of Darkness $7,005,000
5. Tooth Fairy $6,500,000
I didn’t see this coming. Even the makers of “Dear John” didn’t see it–according to The Hollywood Reporter, the weepie love story earned $10 million more than projected. The awfully reviewed movie didn’t get its first place finish just by luck, though–with the Super Bowl this weekend, Sony Screen Gems figured that there were probably a lot of girls’ nights out planned, and this movie would be a perfect antidote to all the analysis about how Dwight Freeney’s ankle was progressing (if that last phrase meant nothing to you, then you might have gone to see “Dear John”). Unsurprisingly, 81% of the film’s audience was female; a little more surprisingly, 64% was under 21. This is the result, I think, of several factors: one is that “Dear John” was a trailer in heavy rotation during the “New Moon” theatrical run; I think Amanda Seyfried is an actress teens genuinely like (they probably don’t mind Channing Tatum shirtless either); Nicholas Sparks has achieved a solid brand name as a reliable purveyor of icky melodramatic love stories; and I suspect that there may have been a good number of mother-daughter trips to this movie. Finally, I think “Avatar” was due; something was going to catch up with it, whether it was this week or next.
It was nothing short of a disastrous opening for this other week’s new release, “From Paris with Love.” The film had an estimated $52 million budget and earned only $8.1 million. Wow. The producers of “Paris” are blaming the Super Bowl, which is odd because the game isn’t until Sunday night, so I’m not sure how you can blame it for a poor showing on Friday and Saturday. They also called the snowstorm that pummeled the southern part of the east coast of the US a major factor as well, but again, that’s a pretty small segment of the country. In other words, the spin factor is in super high gear wiht this bust. “Paris’s” director Pierre Morel was super hot this time last year for making the low-cost, high-grossing “Taken.” This will surely cool some of that hotness. Mr. Morel better not be too demanding during the planning of his upcoming ”Dune” adaptation.
Since we have a long weekend in the US next week, there are several high-profile new releases, namely “Valentine’s Day,” “The Wolfman,” and “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.” I don’t know enough about “Percy Jackson” other than it has a built in audience from its base as a kids’ book. “The Wolfman” and “Valentine’s Day” both look just awful, but hey, if “Dear John” could suck in people, then maybe one of those movies will find its way to success as well. We can all dream.
