Despite early concerns that Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel would topple James Cameron's crown this weekend based on advance ticket sales, the second week of release for Avatar bodes incredibly well for the long-term prospects for the movie; it brought in an estimated $75 million, a staggeringly low drop-off when compared with its opening $77 million.

More impressively, Avatar's success comes despite the second most-successful film of the weekend, Sherlock Holmes breaking the record for the most successful Christmas opening of all time (Its estimated $65.4 million easily beating previous holder Meet The Fockers' $46.2 million), and amid the most successful weekend domestic box office gross of all time; this weekend, American cinemas took an estimated $285 million, up from July last year, when the opening of The Dark Knight led American theaters to a $260 million best. With these kinds of numbers, it's no surprise that box office records for IMAX were broken this weekend thanks to Avatar (Earning $12.1 million globally), or that the movie is #1 in all but one of its 108 countries of release right now (India is the only hold-out, but even there, it's #2). If this keeps up, then we may have discovered a film that'll topple Titanic off the most successful movie of all time title after all...

Despite estimates for the movie's opening weekend having been raised following Thursday's midnight opening, Friday's tally of "only" $27 million has made industry viewers nervous that Legend's $77.2 million record will be left untouched by the end of the weekend, despite increased ticket prices from IMAX sales, in part because of winter storms keeping potential audiences indoors.

Nonetheless, the Friday tally was Fox's biggest opening day outside of the summer blockbuster season, and even before the movie opened, director James Cameron was talking about the weekend box office not being too important in the long run:

I don't think were going to know where we land for about three weeks. Everybody in our business is so programmed to have a final decision on Monday morning, but I think Monday won't mean anything. I think it will tell us what our opening was, but it won't tell us what we'll do the next weekend... Does (the response) translate to positive word-of-mouth for women? Do we fall less because of the 3D and emotionality? We don't yet. It's a big experiment right now.

Our bet? Next weekend won't see the usual massive drop-off, as a mix of the effects and the holidays will drive people to repeat viewings. In the long term, though...? It's not going to be another Titanic, but will it have similar word-of-mouth success?

Neill Blomkamp's movie about alien refugees in South Africa took in an impressive $14.2 million on Friday, just under half of its $30 million budget, and enough to make it the most successful movie of the day, with The Time-Traveler's Wife taking second place and GI Joe falling to third (and down 68% compared with the Friday of the week before, suggesting that there's not a lot of gas left in the Joe engine longterm).

With a one-day total like that, it's almost impossible that D9 will have earned back its entire budget by the end of this weekend, if it's not done so already (Saturday's box office estimates haven't been released yet).

UPDATE: The Hollywood Reporter estimates that the movie will gross $37 million this weekend.

'District 9' easily tops box office [Variety]

The new movie is expected to make above $50 million between Friday and Sunday, according to analysts, which would make it more successful than Terminator Salvation and within Watchmen's $55.7 million opening weekend (Joe actually grossed more than Watchmen on the Friday, but Watchmen's Thursday night screenings took it to $25.1 million total for the day officially). This may be the sign that movie executives were looking for, in terms of proof that name recognition and a more general rating - Joe is a PG-13, against Terminator and Watchmen's R ratings - is more important than either positive buzz or the quality of the finished movie.

With mainstream reviews coming in and not being very good (although Roger Ebert's is a masterpiece of snark), it'll be interesting to see if that impacts attendance throughout the weekend. If it doesn't, and Joe ends up making somewhere around the rumored $55 million, expect to see more toy movies being rushed into production... and past the movie critics.

Box office estimates late Sunday gave Transformers $201.2 million for the five day opening weekend, which isn't enough to beat The Dark Knight's $203.8 million, but enough to make it the second highest 5-day opening in US box office history, and the second film ever to break the $200 million mark in such a short amount of time. Already the third most successful film of the year, it's likely to take the top spot in a matter of days.

Internationally, the film has grossed $387 million.

'Transformers' on top with $201.2 mil [Variety]

The first film to pass the $200 million mark this year, the Trek revamp has already managed to crack the top 100 earners in the US box office (non-inflation adjusted), meaning that it's made more money than movies like Toy Story, Twilight and Superman Returns. Impressive for a movie that's not even been released for a month yet, but it's worth noting that it's still coming in below such cinematic greats as Alvin And The Chipmunks and Mrs. Doubtfire in the current chart. By the end of this summer, though, who knows? If nothing else, it's almost guaranteed to beat Batman Begins, earning it a place as the most successful cinematic reboot to date - and, presumably, the one to learn from in years to come.

All Time Box Office Domestic Grosses [Box Office Mojo]

To its credit, Salvation has outperformed 2003's Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines in its first two days at the box office, giving McG and star Christian Bale something to smile - or grimace and shout their names loudly for no immediately apparent reason, perhaps - about (Salvation has made $28.3 million in its first two days, against T3's $24.3 million). Yesterday, however, saw the much-anticipated movie lose out to the Ben Stiller sequel vehicle, which grossed $15.3 million to Salvation's $14.8 million.

With critical reaction to both movies generally pretty unfavorable - Night At The Museum 2 getting a 43% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and Terminator Salvation getting 34% - it'll be down to word of mouth to see which movie ultimately triumphs this weekend. Call me cynical, but my money's on the feel-good movie that doesn't feature the slow and deliberate destruction of the human race.

'Museum' tops 'Terminator' Friday [Hollywood Reporter]

Firstly, to placate the nervous: Yes, $55.7 million is a lot of money; Watchmen's first weekend is the third-largest March opening of all time (even including adjustments for inflation), second largest IMAX opening (behind The Dark Knight), 12th largest superhero movie opening (20th when adjusted for inflation) and 6th largest R-rated opening (14th when adjusted for inflation), none of which is to be laughed at. Furthermore, Warners domestic distribution president Dan Fellman has said that the studio is "pleased" with the opening weekend. The New York Daily News is even predicting that the movie's success will usher in even more superhero movies - although, admittedly, the examples it cites were all greenlit before the movie opened.

However.

(And you knew there was a "however," didn't you?)

Even ignoring the fact that all the talk of Watchmen beating Zack Snyder's previous movie, 300 to take the March crown was optimistic at best (Although I'm unconvinced by the "The length of the movie meant that it never had a chance" arguments, I have to admit; Watchmen is only 13 minutes longer than The Dark Knight, after all, and the latter outperformed the former by more than 100% per theatre in its opening weekend), there are still signs that Watchmen's performance may cause headaches for its producers after all. The worrying drops of the three days from the movie's weekend - $25 million to $19 million to $11 million - is noteworthy, although whether it's because of negative word of mouth or simply what happens when all the fans see the movie on opening night and then you're left with an somewhat-disinterested general public is open to question. We'll get to see in following days, and especially this coming weekend, whether non-fans are taking to the movie (as well as, perhaps, how much repeat business the movie gets from its most eager supporters).

More worrying to those involved now, however, is whether Watchmen will make any money for Warners at all in its initial run; the Hollywood Reporter isn't sure that it will:

Judging by a NYU's professor's regression model on how opening weekend box office numbers predict total movie grosses, and adjusting downward due to expected higher-than-normal opening weekend geek fandom, we'd expect this film to eventually gross about, or just above, $130 million domestically when all is said and done (Paramount holds overseas rights). Funny enough, that happens to be the same figure as the reported budget of the film.

That's not factoring in the money spent on promotion or the payout that Warners owes to Fox as a result of the lawsuit, of course (which may go as high as 8.5% of Warner's take). While Devin Chud is right that pretty much all movies make money at some point of their existence - especially considering the inevitability of numerous "Director's Cut" versions on DVD in the future selling to the hardcore fanbase - there's no escaping the fact that, if the Reporter's projections are right and this movie doesn't turn a profit for Warners in theaters, Watchmen's performance can definitely be viewed as a disappointment.

All of this may be beside the point for some; there is definitely an argument to be made that like it or not, the fact that the movie was made at all could be considered an achievement, and a more important one than box office could ever be (Man, where were those people when Speed Racer tanked?), but it'd be shortsighted at best to think that Watchmen's performance is entirely unimportant or won't affect other unknown comic properties. For now, we're all watching Watchmen... if only to see whether the movie will, accidentally, have as big an effect on superhero movies as the comic did on superhero comics.

In its second weekend, Batman Begins only lost about 44 percent of its box office take, compared with a 63 percent drop-off for Batman And Robin. (And Superman Returns had a 58.5 percent drop-off.) So a lot depends, for the Hulk, on word-of-mouth and reviews. Can the Hulk crush Maxwell Smart this weekend? Few reviewers seem to be saying the Hulk is as great as Batman Begins, and it's possible most of the die-hard fans have seen TIH already. My guess is Hulk will end up doing almost as well as Superman Returns, which is nothing to sneeze at.

The other big surprise success of the weekend was M. Night Shyamalan's much-maligned The Happening, which scored $30.3 million, better than Unbreakable and Lady In The Water. The film will probably make back its $50 million budget, but its success may just hasten the slow death of Shyamalan's career, if the people who saw it decide never to brave one of his movies again. [Box Office Prophets and Box Office Mojo]