‘Dear John’ replaces ‘Avatar’ for number 1 spot at box office
Romance proved to be a powerful foe for the epic “Avatar,” which has dominated the box office for the last seven weekends. The Lasse Hallstrom-directed romantic drama “Dear John” won the weekend in a big way, grossing an estimated $32.4 million and setting a record for the highest-grossing Superbowl Sunday frame in history.
“Avatar” fell to second place for the first time, dropping a still scant 25 percent to $23.6 million. The James Cameron film has now out-grossed every movie in the history of cinema (as long as we don’t adjust for inflation) with a domestic take of an astounding $630 million.
The new romantic drama “Dear John” unexpectedly ended the seven-week reign of “Avatar” at the weekend box office in North America on Sunday, pulling in large numbers of young female moviegoers.
“Dear John,” directed by Lasse Hallström, is the latest movie adapted from a novel by Nicholas Sparks and remixes many of the requisite gooey ingredients – star-crossed lovers, terminal illness, romantic beachside gambols, a crate load of hankies. “The Notebook,” starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, was the template for this sort of thing, and “Dear John” barely reworks the formula.
Channing Tatum plays John Tyree, a Special Forces soldier who falls in love with moony, idealistic Savannah, played by Amanda Seyfried, while on leave visiting his autistic father (Richard Jenkins) in South Carolina. (He cooks lasagna without fail every Sunday, so you know something’s odd.)
Savannah is on spring break from college, John is hoping to finish his tour of duty in a year so they can live happily ever after. Then 9/11 intervenes. Lots of letters are dispatched between these two lovebirds, which is a testament not only to their enduring ardor but also to the postal system, which unfailingly reaches John in top-secret hideaways in, from the look of it, Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
“Dear John” grossed an estimated $32.4 million in the three-day period since opening Friday, said distributor Screen Gems, the low-budget division of Sony Corp..
In third place at the box office was spy story From Paris with Love–starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as CIA men trying to crack a terrorist plot – which took 8.1 million dollars.
