Box Office Report: Big Blue Edition

Dude here again. Only two more box office reports left for 2009, can you believe it? What a crazy year it's been, from the Mall Cop to the New Moon, and everything in between. It certainly has been a roller coaster ride, full of terrible movies making far too much money, while more deserving films got swept under the rug. It's all part of this ridiculous game that gets played out every week. A game which I bet on every week in Vegas, hoping to make a fraction of the Transformers 2 gross.

To date, I haven't made a dime, mostly because I insisted on betting obscene amounts on movies like Ninja Assassin.

This weekend, James Cameron came around to change everyone's game. Did he succeed? Let's go to the numbers, shall we? (All in millions, remember, and these are the studio estimates. The actuals will be available on Monday).

1. Avatar (Fox) $73.0, 3452 screens, week 1, $73.0 total

2. The Princess and the Frog (BV)- $12.2, 3475 screens, week 4, $44.7 total

3. The Blind Side (WB) - $10.0, 3407 screens, week 5, $164.7 total

4. Did You Hear About The Morgans? (Sony) - $7.0, 2718 screens, week 1, $7.0 total

5. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Sum)- $4.3, 3035 screens, week 5, $274.5 total

6. Invictus (WB) - $4.1, 2125 screens, week 2, $15.8 total

7. A Christmas Carol (BV) - $3.4, 2070 screens, week 7, $130.7 total

8. Up In The Air (Par)- $3.1, 175 screens, week 3, $8.1 total

9. Brothers (LGF) - $2.6, 2009 screens, week 3, $22.0 total

10. Old Dogs (BV)- $2.2, 2630 screens, week 4, $43.5 total

So those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means that James Cameron (and thousands of bloggers across the world reporting on this) can continue with the mantle of "King of the World". Avatar, the wildly hyped sci-fi 3-D immersion film set a record for Cameron's highest opening weekend, and ensured that Fox will make back the copious amounts of money it spent making and selling the Na'Vi to the human masses. The inflated ticket prices for 3-D and IMAX probably helped a bit too.

Did you hear about the Morgans? That's okay, apparently nobody else did either.

Blind Side, there is just no stopping you is there? Week 5, and you're increasing screens, despite stiff counter-programming of 9 foot tall blue creatures in a 3-D environment? That's ballsy, and exactly the kind of thing that makes this box office game so dang interesting.

And making it's first appearance in the top ten is Up In The Air, pulling in an impressive $3 million while only playing on 175 screens! Watch it to take more when it's released wide on Wednesday.

Below the radar, the final movie of the year with the word "Nine" in the title was released. After Cloud 9, District 9, and 9, we're treated to a musical based on 8 and 1/2, which wisely rounded it up to Nine. On 4 screens, it took in $247,000, taking in the highest per screen average of all, including Big Blue. Other Oscar hopefuls released limited this week are The Young Victoria, which I'm assuming deals with England in fancy dress time, taking in $148,000 on 20 screens, and Crazy Heart, featuring Jeff "The Dude" Bridges, also opening on 4 screens, but only taking in $84,200.

There you have my amazing break down. Next week, we have a new Chipmunks sequel!!!! And Sherlock Holmes played by Iron Man! And we get to see if Avatar is a fluke or has a chance of coming within spitting distance of Titanic's records. (Which it won't).

Until next weekend.......