Valentine's Day did not suffer a Valentine's Day hangover.
The all-star romantic comedy, featuring Julia Roberts, the Taylors (Swift and Lautner) and loads more, set a President's Day weekend box office record with a big fat $66.9 million Friday-Monday, the latest estimates show.
The Lightning Thief ($38.8 million) and The Wolfman ($36.5 million) held their positions; Avatar ($30 million) added to its substantial bottom line. More results:
• Valentine's Day may no longer be compared with He's Just Not That Into You: V-Day almost doubled—doubled—the Friday-Sunday debut of that 2009 ensemble hit, and smashed Ghost Rider's old President's Day weekend record. V-Day, in fact, made more money in three days than Ghost Rider made in four.
• It was a record President's Day weekend for all of Hollywood, not just Valentine's Day. Four films made at least $30 million; five films made at least $15 million.
• Of the weekend's major new releases, Valentine's Day made the most, and cost the least, with a reputed budget of about $50 milion.
• The $95 million Lightning Thief, full name: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Not to Be Confused for Harry Potter, Although We Wouldn't Mind If You Did—Confuse Us, That Is, and the $150 million Wolfman both opened OK. But, given their budgets, both have a ways to go.
• Can Avatar become the first movie to hit $700 million domestically? With nine weekends-plus now in the books, the James Cameron Oscar contender stands at nearly $670 million.
• One more remarkable Avatar thing: The movie finished fourth for the weekend—its lowest ranking yet—but its Friday-Sunday performance of $23.5 million was actually up from last weekend's.
• Dear John, the movie that upset Avatar last weekend, fell four places, to fifth, one spot below Avatar. But the $34 million romantic drama is still a winner: It took in another $18.8 million through Monday, and hit $56.7 million domestically.
• Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes ($1.9 million Friday-Monday) slid out of the Top 10 after seven big weekends, and $204.4 million. The no-star Legion ($2.2 million; $38.3 million overall) got cut after three weekends more than big enough to cover its $26 million budget.
• On Sunday, Denzel Washington's The Book of Eli lost its Top 10 status, but by the time the full holiday weekend standings were out, it was back among the elite, with its $4.4 million Friday-Monday gross just edging When in Rome's $4.2 million.
Here's an updated rundown of the holiday weekend's top-grossing films from Friday-Monday, per estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- Valentine's Day, $66.9 million
- Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, $38.8 million
- The Wolfman, $36.5 million
- Avatar, $30 million
- Dear John, $18.8 million
- The Tooth Fairy, $7.7 million
- From Paris with Love, $6.8 million
- Edge of Darkness, $5.7 million
- Crazy Heart, $5 million
- The Book of Eli, $4.4 million
(Originally published Feb. 14, 2010, at 8:37 a.m. PT)
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This weekend's movies are history. See what movies hope to make history in our Movies From the Future! gallery.