In its sixth weekend in release Avatar slipped a modest 15% and left the competition in the distance with an estimated $36.2 million. Three films bowed nationally during the frame with the sci-fi adventure Legion the best grosser with $17.9 million that ranked it second. The other wide debuts included the family fantasy The Tooth Fairy with $14.6 million and the maiden outing for CBS Film –the dramatic Extraordinary Measures — that proved a disappointment.

The inspirational To Save a Life was just OK with $1.4 million from 441 theaters. Niche and limited newcomers were also generally blah including Bollywood entry Veer with $171,000 at 92 venues and the historical bio Creation that tallied $84,500 from 21 exposures. More encouraging was the two screen launch of French import Girl on the Train with $18,700.

Overall grosses dipped from both the three-day portion of last weekend’s holiday frame and box office from last year.

It would be interesting to find out the folk still in contention in the Fox pool for Avatar’s eventual box office — domestic and international. Moles in the organization say that few held out hope for more than $500 million in North America and an additional $1.2 million from the rest of the world. Talk about a leap in the dark. Its stratospheric popularity flies in the face of movie-going trends of the past decade when it’s simply de rigeur to experience weekly erosion of 50% and more for the big guns. With the picture now a likely Oscar contender, it’s steaming ahead unabated and (notwithstanding higher ticket costs) in range to surpass the Titanic record.

New and recent films in the marketplace have been largely grist for the mill and this weekend’s trio doesn’t break the rule. Neither the young male targeted Legion nor the family friendly The Tooth Fairy can expect to do more than tickle the fancy of avids and slip away quickly into ancillary revenue streams.

It’s been two decades since CBS dabbled in feature production (Back Roads with Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones) and Extraordinary Measures doesn’t bode well for its vitality or longevity. If the intention is to make quality films for adults they are to be commended. But it’s also like gambling on longshots. You cannot orchestrate the success of The Blind Side employing tracking and marketing strategies used to elevate genre films. The best one can hope for is an anomaly (or several) that erase the misfires unless new methods of gauging the audience are developed.

Weekend revenues should surpass $150 million that translate into a 13% dip from seven days earlier. It’s also 8% less potent than the 2009 frame when the second weekend of Paul Blart: Mall Cop led with $21.6 million; followed by the debut of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans with $20.8 million.

Last evening’s SAG awards didn’t do much in the way of presaging surprises on the award’s circuit leading up to the Oscar finale. There’s a nagging inevitability about the eventual outcome that isn’t helpful to current theatrical box office. Inglorious Basterds is fast approaching its ancillary windows globally and whatever boost it receives from kudos will be difficult to discern. Both Precious and The Blind Side have barely stepped out internationally and while neither can expect to replicate their domestic box office, each will play wider than they would have without the new spotlight.

Unquestionably the largest beneficiary of award attention is Crazy Heart. Again its subject matter limits foreign appeal but that bar has nonetheless been raised several notches. Domestically it continues to roll out slowly with the concern that once it opens wide it won’t have the same commercial vitality despite the sort of heartland appeal that’s figured into some of the biggest box office surprises of the past two decades.

-by Leonard Klady

Domestic Market Share: January 1-21, 2010

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