Monday box-office update:
Fox on Monday released revised box-office performance figures for "Avatar," showing that the James Cameron 3D epic actually grossed $77 million domestically over the weekend.
It was originally reported Sunday that the film only grossed $73 million in North America.
The movie's international premiere number was also upped to $165.5 million from $159.2 million, giving it a global opening of $242.5 million.
With the East Coast hit hard by storm activity, and slowing "Avatar's" Saturday performance, the film just missed out on becoming the all-time top December opener in North America -- "I Am Legend," which did $77.2 million on the same weekend two years ago, still owns that distinction.
Sunday update:
Even the King of the World gets trumped by Mother Nature.
With snow showers and freezing temperatures paralyzing much of the East Coast, the premiere box-office total of James Cameron's highly anticipated 3D epic "Avatar" was slowed a bit.
The Fox film opened to a three-day domestic total of $73 million, according to studio estimates.
Numbers across the snowbound Eastern Seaboard were way down for “Avatar” on Saturday from its debut Friday, with New York declining 18 percent, Washington, D.C., down 75 percent, Philadelphia off 57 percent and Baltimore registering a whopping 86 percent drop-off.
Still, with exceptional word-of-mouth for the film, which garnered an “A” Cinemascore grade, Fox still enjoyed the second biggest December premiere ever, trailing only “I Am Legend” ($77.2 million) two years ago.
While the opening isn’t the $90 million-plus bonanza some industry watchers had speculated, “Avatar” -- budgeted at what the studio says is $237 million -- did beat Fox’s conservative premiere estimates of just below $60 million. Studio officials had been concerned that the movie’s two-hour, 40-minute length and its confinement mostly to the finite universe of 3D screens, would limit its potential gross initially.
“With the word-of-mouth on this movie, the business we lost yesterday we will get back in the coming days,” Fox executive VP of distribution Chris Aronson told TheWrap. “We’re going to start making it up today.”
With $159.2 million in foreign ticket sales, Aronson added, “Avatar” should finish the weekend with a global premiere of $232.2 million, what he described as the biggest worldwide opening ever for a non-sequel/non-franchise film.
Of course, other studios were calling “Nor’Easter” on their openings, too.
Sony officials say the storm also hindered the debut of Marc Lawrence-directed romantic comedy “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” -- although, exceptionally poor reviews certainly factored into the $50 million Hugh Grant film’s $7 million start.
And, overall, the box office was actually up a whopping 52 percent overall over the same weekend last year, according to one studio’s estimate.
Finishing in second place, last weekend’s box-office champ, Disney hand-drawn toon “The Princess and the Frog,” finished with $12.2 million, down 50 percent week-to-week.
Warner’s “The Blind Side” continued its strong hold, dropping only 33 percent in its fifth week to finish in third place with $10 million.
