In record weekend for Hollywood, ‘Avatar’ tops ‘Sherlock Holmes,’ ‘Squeakquel’

‘Avatar’ trumps new releases in its second weekend

NEW YORK — On a weekend that shattered box-office records, “Avatar,” in its second week of release, trumped the debuts of “Sherlock Holmes,” ”Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” and “It’s Complicated.”

“Avatar” earned $75.6 million, barely dropping from its opening weekend haul of $77.4 million. In its first 10 days of release, it’s made $212.7 million for 20th Century Fox.

The diverse array of high-profile releases over the holiday weekend set a record with an estimated $278 million in weekend box-office revenue. That broke the previous record of roughly $253 million set in July 2008 on the weekend “The Dark Knight” was released.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. “Avatar,” Fox, $75,617,133, 3,456 locations, $21,880 average, $212,711,184, two weeks.

2. “Sherlock Holmes,” Warner Bros., $65,380,000, 3,626 locations, $18,031 average, $65,380,000, one week.

3. “Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel,” Fox, $48,875,415, 3,700 locations, $13,210 average, $75,589,048, one week.

4. “It’s Complicated,” Universal, $22,100,820, 2,887 locations, $7,655 average, $22,100,820, one week.

5. “Up in the Air,” Paramount, $11,755,000, 1,895 locations, $6,203 average, $24,518,000, four weeks.

6. “The Blind Side,” Warner Bros., $11,730,000, 2,766 locations, $4,241 average, $184,387,000, six weeks.

7. “The Princess and the Frog,” Disney, $9,004,610, 3,475 locations, $2,591 average, $63,679,289, five weeks.

8. “Nine,” Weinstein Co., $5,452,513, 1,412 locations, $3,862 average, $5,830,605, two weeks.

9. “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” Sony, $5,000,143, 2,718 locations, $1,840 average, $15,600,328, two weeks.

10. “Invictus,” Warner Bros., $4,390,000, 2,160 locations, $2,032 average, $23,365,000, three weeks.

11. “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” Summit, $3,047,000, 1,593 locations, $1,913 average, $280,970,522, six weeks.

12. “3 Idiots,” Big Pictures, $1,645,502, 119 locations, $13,828 average, $2,149,227, one week.

13. “Disney’s a Christmas Carol,” Disney, $1,292,155, 1,245 locations, $1,038 average, $135,888,543, eight weeks.

14. “Brothers,” Lionsgate, $1,210,172, 858 locations, $1,410 average, $25,341,515, four weeks.

15. “2012,” Sony/Columbia, $994,494, 800 locations, $1,243 average, $161,490,680, seven weeks.

16. “Precious,” Lionsgate, $865,083, 629 locations, $1,375 average, $41,778,920, eight weeks.

17. “Old Dogs,” Disney, $652,737, 645 locations, $1,012 average, $45,882,504, five weeks.

18. “The Young Victoria,” Apparition, $645,315, 163 locations, $3,959 average, $927,963, two weeks.

19. “The Road,” Weinstein Co., $449,066, 311 locations, $1,444 average, $5,879,604, five weeks.

20. “A Single Man” Weinstein Co., $352,652, 46 locations, $7,666 average, $920,532, three weeks.

On the Net:

www.hollywood.com/boxoffice

Universal Pictures and Focus Features are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co.; Sony Pictures, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount and Paramount Vantage are divisions of Viacom Inc.; Disney’s parent is The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is a division of The Walt Disney Co.; 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a consortium of Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Sony Corp., Comcast Corp., DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and Quadrangle Group; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC Films is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue Pictures is owned by Relativity Media LLC; Overture Films is a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp.