Box Office Report: Holiday Bonanza!!!

Dude here again. We've reached our final box office report for the year! It really has been a year of lunacy, and it's also been a year of record breaking, with ticket sales in excess of TEN BILLION DOLLARS! sadly, a large chunk of that came from the transforming robot picture. Regardless, it's still ten billion dollars and counting, with only four more days left in the year.

Still, ten billion dollars and they can't give me my $20 back for Terminator Salvation and Boondock Saints 2? C'mon!

This weekend, a close race to claim the number one spot in the beginning, but big blue prevails, as more records are broken. 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) $75.0, 3456 screens, week 2, $212.2 total

2. Sherlock Holmes (WB) - $65.3, 3626 screens, week 1, $65.3 total

3. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (Fox) - $50.2, 3700 screens, week 1 $77.0 total (Wed Open)

4. It's Complicated (Uni)- $22.1, 2887 screens, week 1, $22.1 total

5. Up In The Air (Par)- $11.7, 1895 screens, week 4, $24.5 total

6. The Blind Side (WB) - $11.7, 2766 screens, week 6, $184.3 total

7. The Princess and the Frog (BV)- $8.6, 3475 screens, week 5, $63.3 total

8. Nine (Wein)- $5.5, 1412 screens, week 2, $5.9 total

9. Invictus (WB) - $4.3, 2160 screens, week 3, $23.3 total

10. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Sum)- $3.0, 1593 screens, week 6, $280.9 total

So those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means that Sherlock Holmes new nemesis is of Na'Vi descent. Despite breaking the record for money taken in on Xmas day, Sherlock Holmes was unable to derail the Avatar juggernaut in the long run, a feat a lot of people did not see coming. Still, a $62 million opening is not to shabby, and given the lack of anything opening next week and a full week of opening on full throttle as if it were a summer release, it will be just fine.

(Not for nothing, but if you want a good Sherlock Holmes movie, do yourself a favor and put "Without a Clue" in your Netflix queue. It's got Michael Caine, and Ben Kingsley, and the whole premise is that Holmes is an idiot actor played by Caine to bring life to fictional Holmes, a creation of Dr. Watson who is the true brains behind everything. It's good fun).

How about Avatar, though? Retaining the number 1 spot and dropping only 2.6% of last week's take! The holiday time helped, and factor in the exorbitant costs of IMAX and 3-D ticket prices in raising that figure a bit, but that's an insane lack of drop for a blockbuster of this size. With an insane amount of Oscar buzz going, it seems that Cameron can do no wrong. Hopefully the success of this will not cause another twelve year hiatus.

Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. Just writing it out depresses me. Writing out how much money it made depresses me even more. It's on par with the original's earnings, which means in Xmas 2011 we're going to have a terrible rodent-pun of the word "Trilogy" bestowing our cinemas. I hope you're proud.

There are far too many It's Complicated jokes to be made, so I'm going to leave that to far snarkier writers than I, and congratulate Meryl Streep on another spectacular year of acting. I mean that genuinely, I'll see anything she does.

Blind Side and Up In The Air are neck and neck as well, but I sincerely doubt that's the box office call too close to tell that anyone wanted or cared about. Regardless, you should still check out Up In The Air. Great movie.

The combined fgrosses of all the blockbusters might be enough to push this weekend into the record books as the most profitable weekend of all time, besting the record set by Dark Knight and Mamma Mia upon their release in July of 2008. Also worth noting: in the estimates for the day, they didn't even bother posting the take for Did You Hear About The Morgans. Hopefully one will be hearing from them shortly, but if they are gone will anyone know they were here in the first place? Kinda makes you think, huh?

Below the radar, the final movie of Heath Ledger (The Terry Gilliam one, not the one with the bat man), The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, opened up on 4 screens, and took in $130,000, which is the highest per screen average of the week! Take that, Avatar! Watch for it to expand, in the hopes of generating a fraction of Dark Knight dollars.

There you have my amazing break down. Next week, begins the new year, and to celebrate no new movies are being released. So watch for not much to change on this list. Take that as a relief or a warning.

Until next year.......