Saturday Update


Fox easily dominated the North American box office for the third time in a row with its sci-fi megahit Avatar which remained the most popular film in the land with an estimated $25M on Friday. That sent the 15-day total for the James Cameron smash to a staggering $308.8M making it the second biggest blockbuster of 2009 trailing just Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Avatar also shot up to number 29 on the all-time domestic blockbusters list passing 1996's alien hit Independence Day.

With Friday being the New Year's Day holiday, moviegoing was extremely busy with the top ten films grossing a muscular $77M. The last time the holiday fell on a Monday was in 1999 and that day accounted for 40-43% of the weekend grosses for most major films. This year's contenders should perform similarly.

Up 9% from last Friday's Christmas Day haul, Avatar also became the third fastest film ever to smash the $300M mark. Only the summer sensations The Dark Knight and the Transformers sequel have broken the mark faster in 10 and 14 days, respectively. The Pandora adventure is now on course to easily break the record for the biggest third weekend gross ever beating Spider-Man's $45M from 2002. The Na'vi pic looks likely to pull in $59-62M this weekend and send its 17-day total to a stellar $345M or so.

With no new films opening, holdovers filled up the rest of the top chart positions too. Sherlock Holmes remained in second place on Friday with an estimated $14.9M, but tumbled a troubling 40% from last Friday's Christmas bow. A weekend take of $35-38M seems likely with the ten-day total set to get close to $140M for Warner Bros.

Fox's hit kidpic Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel collected an estimated $12.5M on Friday, down 9% from last week. A weekend take of $28-31M should result pushing the 12-day tally to around $151M.

Off a scant 1% from its opening day a week earlier, It's Complicated followed with an estimated $7.1M for Universal. The R-rated Meryl Streep comedy is headed for about $17M this weekend which would lift the cume to $57M in ten days.

Sandra Bullock kept drawing in business with The Blind Side which looks set to spend its seventh straight weekend in the top five. Friday saw an estimated $4.5M for an impressive 34% boost sending the football hit across the $200M mark - a first for the star. Look for a weekend of roughly $11M for a total of $207M.

2010 is kicking off with an explosive start as the Top 20 this weekend should take in close to $200M crushing the $147.3M from a year ago. Having the holiday fall on a Friday has contributed to the success as have the bigger blockbusters in the mix.

Get earlier box office updates and analysis by following BoxOfficeGuru.com on Twitter.

Check the UPDATED charts for the Top Hits of 2009 and the Top All-Time Domestic Blockbusters.

Check back on Sunday for the complete weekend box office report.


Last Updated: January 2, 2010 at 12:45PM ET

Written by Gitesh Pandya