Did Avatar Just Flop?

James Cameron special-edition rerelease came up with $4 mil; unfortunately, the heist movie Takers took the weekend with $20.5 mil

By Joal Ryan Aug 29, 2010 6:16 PMTags
Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Avatar20th Century Fox

UPDATE Aug. 30, 2010 at 1:30 p.m.: Takers took the top spot from The Last Exorcism, final studio numbers show, $20.5 million to $20.4 million.

______

The world's biggest movie was back. Moviegoers weren't so much. 

What happened to Avatar at the weekend box office?

For starters, the Oscar-winning James Cameron blockbuster became the first movie to ever top $750 million domestically. 

That's good.

In its 3-D and IMAX 3-D rerelease, the film posted the weekend's fifth-highest reported per-screen average. 

That's good, too.

Everybody from prognosticators to the competition expected Avatar to gross something in the neighborhood of $15 million because it was, well, Avatar. In the end, it grossed $4 million.

That's bad.

So, basically, Avatar lost the expectations game.

In the real world, the film upped its domestic haul to $753.8 million. 

No, not bad for a film that you've owned long enough to require a good dusting. And, yes, we should all "flop" like that. 

Other results:

The Last Exorcism was produced for a reported $1.8 million. The horror flick made an estimated $21.3 million. It opened at No. 1. It was, to sum up, freakishly good. 

Takers cost a reported $32 million. The heist flick made $21 million. It just missed No. 1. It was, to sum up, surprisingly strong. 

More than half of Takers' audience was young women. So, no, Chris Brown was not a chick repellant.

• Julia Roberts' Eat Pray Love ($7 million) hasn't done anything flashy. But after three weekends of hanging in there, it has matched its reported $60 million budget.

In its second weekend, Jennfer Aniston's The Switch ($4.7 million; $16.5 million overall) didn't take a dive, but it didn't climb, either.

Inception ($5.1 million) topped $270 million.

Toy Story 3 ($1.1 million), the No. 1 hit of the summer and of the year, crossed $1 billion worldwide. It's the first animated film to do so.

Here lies the $60 million Scott Pilgrim ($2.5 million; $26.1 million overall), out of the Top 10 after two weekends, and misunderstood until its inevitable rebirth on Blu-Ray and other formats that haven't been invented yet.

Here's a complete look at the weekend's top-grossing films, per Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

  1. The Last Exorcism, $21.3 million
  2. Takers, $21 million
  3. The Expendables, $9.5 million
  4. Eat Pray Love, $7 million
  5. The Other Guys, $6.6 million
  6. Vampires Suck, $5.3 million
  7. Inception, $5.1 million
  8. Nanny McPhee Returns, $4.7 million
  9. The Switch, $4.66 million
  10. Piranha 3D, $4.3 million

______

Photos: Totally New Releases.