'Dear John' beats out 'Avatar' at the box office

"Avatar" has dominated the box office for the last seven weekends. The romantic drama "Dear John" won the weekend with an estimated $32.4 million. "Avatar" out-grossed every movie in cinema history with am astounding $630 million. "Dear John's" success can be attributed to a marketing campaign that targeted women, who were 84% of the audience. Based on Nicholas Sparks' novel, the movie was entirely financed by Relativity Media, and Sony's Screen Gems distributed it.

The top ten are

1. Dear John - $32.4 million
2. Avatar - $23.6 million
3. From Paris With Love - $8.1 million
4. Edge of Darkness - $7 million
5. Tooth Fairy - $6.5 million
6. When in Rome - $5.5 million
7. The Book Of Eli - $4.8 million
8. Crazy Heart - $3.6 million
9. Legion - $3.4 million
10. Sherlock Holmes - $2.6 million

The records were broken for the top film, but the weekend performed beneath last year at this time when "Gran Torino," "Paul Blart Mall Cop," "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Taken" dominated the frame.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/07/boxoffice.dear.john.ew/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29

I know that each movie wants to be the best movie out in the theatres when it plays and it wants to sell the most when it comes out on blu-ray and dvd, but I think that say that "Dear John" beat out "Avatar" is a strong statement. The movies are for our entertainment and some to get a message across, not to try and 'beat out' another movie. When "Avatar" first came out a lot of people wanted to see it, so that is why it was the movie that got a lot of money. Now that "Dear John" is out, many people want to see that to, so those people are going to see it. Sure a movie can make more money on ticket sales, but a newer movie will get more viewers then a movie that has been out for seven weeks. That is because most of the people who want to see the older movie have probably already seen it and want to see a different movie.