Monday, December 28th, 2009

2009's final weekend box office returns may have been the most interesting this year, which says a lot coming from a year that contained Paranormal Activity's surprise success, as well as the tween domination with The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and the raunchy Todd Phillips' comedy The Hangover raking in enough money to make many critics question it being the final nail in the coffin of the Hollywood star system. Yet, we come to James Cameron's Avatar's second week, garnering $75 million, only dropping a measly 2% from last week, taking in the second highest second week of all time, just behind The Dark Knight, not to mention breaking the record for 3-D sales, as $57 million of the intake was for the 3-D showings. Of course, this may still seem a bit far from the estimated $500 million budget on the 3-D blockbuster, even considering it took in an additional $60 million over the weekdays. Yet, the worldwide success of the film has already hit the $623 million mark abroad, when added with the stateside totals. What is even more impressive about the feat is that it contended with the debut of the much anticipated Guy Ritchie reboot, Sherlock Holmes, which took in $65 million, and despite landing second place, broke the record for highest Christmas Day opening of all time. Also in contention was the family friendly Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel, topping out a little over $50 million, and despite not being confirmed, I cannot find any other film to debut that high in third place. Even more impressive, the weekend as a whole earned roughly $270 million. This makes it the biggest earning weekend of the year, and topping last year's top weekend by 34%, being the weekend in which The Dark Knight and Momma Mia! debuted. It is also worth mentioning that Oscar contenders Up in the Air and Nine both extended to wide release, with the Rob Marshall musical even receiving a 2,000+% change in sales.

Of course, quality isn't always, and quite conversely usually opposite, on par with profit. Avatar is good, but it is overrated, while we have the debut of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus land in 26th place and in limited release, and despite over a year of following Terry Gilliam's latest flick, I have to let the critically acclaimed jewel float by unnoticed for the more mainstream flicks, at least until the DVD is released since I live in the middle of nowhere. In the same category of being looked over as Imaginarium earlier this year, was a British film called Bronson. Since Nicolas Winding Refn's bizarre biopic of famed prisoner/bare-knuckle boxer Charles Bronson didn't make a splash at the box office, or didn't stop the presses with any earth-shattering reviews, it floated underneath my radar quite easily. However, lucky to a few bloggers really pushing for Tom Hardy to receive some recognition for his titular performance, I did a good amount of reading and watched this fabulous trailer. Not only will the much quoted review comparing it favorably to Stanley Kubrick's masterful A Clockwork Orange catch your eye, but the trailer looks absolutely flawless and is definitely a must see once it is available. As a note, a higher quality version is available on YouTube, but embedding has been disabled.