James Cameron’s Avatar continued its amazing run at the box office energizing what is a typically sluggish early January weekend with an estimated  take of $48.5 million, a drop of just 29% in its fourth frame.  Avatar has already earned $429 million at the domestic box office, eclipsing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($402 million) and making Cameron’s 3-D science fiction saga the highest-grossing film released in 2009.  This weekend Avatar also brought it $143 million overseas, giving it a worldwide total of $1.34 billion, second only to Cameron’s Titanic ($1.8 billion).  It is abundantly clear that Avatar has become a “must-see” cinema phenomenon with the potential to set all sorts of records.

It now appears likely that Avatar will eclipse Titanic’s worldwide total and will also top The Dark Knight’s domestic total of $533.3.  Avatar’s $48.5 million total smashed the previous $27.8 million record for a film’s fourth weekend gross, which was held by Cameron’s Titanic and set 12 years ago.  Taking into account ticket price inflation and the extra cost of 3-D admissions, the actual number of ticket buyers for the fourth frame of Titanic is nearly identical with the audience that saw Avatar this past weekend.  The past two weekend grosses for Avatar are the two biggest weekend totals for any film ever in January.  This past weekend Cameron’s gravity-defying blockbuster helped push Hollywood’s total take some 18% over the same weekend in 2009 when Gran Torino opened wide.

For the third week in a row Avatar was followed by Warner Bros.’ Sherlock Holmes, which has now earned a total of $165.2 million in 17 days, and Fox’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakwell, which has brought in $178.2 million over a similar span.  Both of these films have a solid chance to pass $200 million domestically. 

Of the three new films that opened wide last weekend Lion Gate’s vampire saga, Daybreakers, which managed to get a 61% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes (no mean feat for a horror film), fared the best, posting a weekend total of $15 million, which was good enough for fourth place.  Universal’s new romantic comedy Leap Year ($9.1 million) opened a step below the same studio’s highly successful geriatric romcom It’s Complicated ($11 million), which is now in its third weekend in theaters.  Leap Year’s opening weekend audience mix, 79% female and 54% over 30, would indicate that competition from It’s Complicated and Paramount’s sophisticated comedy Up in the Air ($7.1 million) along with poor reviews (only 18% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) are all responsible for the film’s lackluster debut. 

Good reviews (71% positive) were not enough to help the Weinstein Company’s Youth in Revolt, which stars Michael Cera, who is also starring in Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim adaptation that opens later this year.  Youth in Revolt earned just $7 million, but with good word of mouth, the $18 million R-rated comedy might be able to demonstrate some good legs in the coming weeks if it can wrest a portion of its young target audience away from the big action films at the top of the charts.