The Box-Office Top Five
#1 "Valentine's Day" ($66.9 million)
#2 "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" ($38.8 million)
#3 "The Wolfman" ($36.5 million)
#4 "Avatar" ($30 million)
#5 "Dear John" ($18.8 million)
The combined star power of Ashton Kutcher, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Julia Roberts, Jessica Alba, Taylor Lautner, Taylor Swift and more won over the hearts, minds and wallets of moviegoers everywhere this weekend as "Valentine's Day" decisively won the holiday-weekend box office.
Director Garry Marshall's ensemble romantic comedy easily took first place with a final domestic tally of $66.9 million by the end of President's Day on Monday. The stateside result alone puts Marshall's latest nearly $17 million ahead of its production budget, providing plenty of non-holiday reasons for the film's participants to celebrate the victory.
Though it won the box office by a meaningful margin, "Valentine's Day" was hardly the only fierce competitor in movie theaters this weekend. Director Chris Columbus' "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" took second place with a $38.8 million domestic haul, proving that there's plenty of room in the marketplace for adaptations of young adventure novels along the lines of the "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" series. Still, with an estimated budget of $95 million, "Percy" needs to electrify audiences a bit more in the coming weeks in order to amass a significant profit.
Despite a third place finish, Joe Johnston's "The Wolfman" didn't fare quite as well as the gold and silver medalists. Universal's re-launch of the classic horror franchise stars Benicio Del Toro in the title role, but the Oscar winner's talent and passion for the project weren't enough to draw the masses to the monster movie. "Wolfman" earned only $36.5 million domestically and $21 million in international markets, for a worldwide total of $57.5 million, leaving the film with a ways to go before earning back its $150 million budget.
It's hard to imagine Fox executives complaining about James Cameron's "Avatar," even after the 3-D science fiction epic fell to fourth place this weekend. In its ninth weekend in theaters, "Avatar" still produced an admirable $30 million finish that bested "Dear John," the romantic drama that dethroned Cameron's latest just last weekend.
Upcoming Releases
Next weekend sees the wide release of director Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island," the Leonardo DiCaprio thriller based on Dennis Lehane's acclaimed novel.
Check out everything we've got on "Valentine's Day" and "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief."
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