It’s difficult to know whether Avatar beating Sherlock Holmes to the top of the Christmas box office is an upset or not. Although the Guy Ritchie must have hoped to come out at number 1, its $65.3 million is still one of the biggest December opening weekends ever, so it certainly can’t be classed as a failure, and includes the highest take ever for Christmas Day. The film took $24.9 million on Friday, smashing the record set by Marley & Me, which took $14.4 million on Christmas Day last year.
However while Sherlock won on Friday, Avatar roared back on Saturday and Sunday to claim the weekend, taking $75.0 million. That take is only marginally less than the $77 million it took last weekend. Although the film is still unlikely to have Titanic legs and stay at the top of the box office for months to come, it shows there’s still a hell of a lot of interest in Cameron’s flick and it will undoubtedly turn a tidy profit for Fox, despite it’s vast cost. It brings Avatar to $212 million in 10 days, which is an impressive take by anyone’s measure. It’s the only film that isn’t a sequel or based on a known character to come close to making that amount in such a short amount of time, and with such a strong holdover for its second weekend, there’s now a decent chance that by the end of its run it’ll be the biggest film released in 2009, overtaking Harry Potter 6’s $929 million,
The other openers also did pretty well, with Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 taking $50 million over the weekend, and $77 million since in opened on Monday. The counterprogramming of the Meryl Streep comedy It’s Complicated also did well, taking $22.1 million in its first weekend. Elsewhere on the chart, the Oscar front-runner, Up In The Air, expanded massively, adding over 1.700 extra screens, and had its best weekend yet, to place fifth with $11 million, while Nine also went into many more theatres and took $5.5 million to hit the top 10 for the first time. Even holdovers like The Blind Side and Invictus saw an uptick in their weekend take.
With Christmas coming on a Friday, it has been by far the biggest festive box office in history, with movies taking around $280 million over the weekend in the US.
Take a look below for the full US box office top 10 for the weekend of December 25th-27th.
Rank | Title | Weekend Gross (millions) | Total Gross to date (millions) |
1 | Avatar | $75.0 | $212.2 |
2 | Sherlock Holmes | $65.3 | $65.3 |
3 | Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakuel | $50.2 | $77.0 |
4 | It’s Complicated | $22.1 | $22.1 |
5 | Up In The Air | $11.7 | $24.5 |
6 | The Blind Side | $11.7 | $184.3 |
7 | The Princess And The Frog | $8.6 | $63.3 |
8 | Nine | $5.5 | $5.9 |
9 | Did You Hear About The Morgans | $5.0 | $15.5 |
10 | Invictus | $4.3 | $23.3 |