Martin Scorsese posted his biggest opening ever with the “R”-rated thriller Shutter Island, which earned a chart-topping $40.2 million at the weekend box office.  The $75 million production, which benefited from a Super Bowl ad, managed to attract a very balanced audience that was 50% male and 50% female and almost equally split between those over and under 25.  Opening in fewer than 3,000 theaters, Shutter Island managed a muscular $13,440 per venue.  If Shutter Island can mimic the kind of staying power demonstrated by previous Scorsese genre efforts like The Departed, retailers should be able to take advantage of a full color graphic novel adaptation of the Shutter Island novel by Dennis Lehane (see “Shutter Island Graphic Novel”).

With no other major films opening and many of the holdovers struggling, the box office was down 50% from last weekend’s record-setting pace, but the top 10 films still managed a 5% hike over the same weekend in 2009.  Last week’s leader, Valentine’s Day, which scored the biggest opening of 2009 so far, dropped off by a staggering 70% in its sophomore session.  In contrast James Cameron’s amazing Avatar fell only 32% and added an estimated $16.1 million to its humongous total.  Avatar, which has now earned $687.8 million domestically, will become the first film to pass the $700 million mark next weekend.

Chris Columbus’ Percy Jackson & The Olympians fell a moderate (for an action film) 51% while earning $15.3 million and claiming fourth place.  Universal’s The Wolfman suffered a mammoth 69% decline and earned an estimated $9.8 million.  It doesn’t appear that the pricy ($150 million) monster film even has a chance to make it to the $100 million mark here in North America.