Avatar Breaks Recordes and Passes Batman The Dark Knight

For the sixth week straight, the box office is all about James Cameron’s Avatar, as it added another $36 million this weekend to set a new record for a movie’s sixth weekend gross. More importantly, it has now grossed $552.8 million domestically, making it the second-highest grossing movie domestically, passing The Dark Knight’s $533.3 million over the weekend and putting it in sight to cross Titanic’s long-standing record of $600.8 million sometime next month. Internationally, Avatar earned $107 million this weekend to push its overseas total to a massive $1.28 billion, surpassing Titanic’s previous international record of $1.24 billion. Worldwide, the film has collected $1.836 billion and is about to surpass Titanic’s global record of $1.843 billion.

The Screen Gems action-thriller Legion, starring Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid and Tyrese Gibson, opened solidly in second place with $18.2 million in 2,476 theaters, averaging over $7,000 per site.

Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Book of Eli (Warner Bros.) dropped to third place $17 million in its second weekend, down 48% from the holiday weekend with a gross of $62 million.

Opening at #4, 20th Century Fox’s new family comedy Tooth Fairy, starring Dwayne Johnson, grossed roughly $14.5 million in its first weekend in 3,344 theaters.

In fifth place, Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones (Paramount) dropped 48% from its first wide release weekend, adding another $8.8 million to its total gross of $31.7 million.

Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes (Warner Bros.) dropped one notch to sixth with another $7.1 million and $191.6 million after five weeks in theaters, putting it well ahead of its $90 million production budget.

Despite the star power of Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser, the first release from CBS films, the medical drama Extraordinary Measures opened with a disappointing $7 million in 2,549 theaters, averaging less than $3,000 per site.

Fox’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel dropped to eighth place with $6.5 million and a grand total of $204 million in five weeks. That puts it roughly $13 million away from the total North American gross for its predecessor. (Internationally, the “squeakquel” has already surpassed that of the original comedy.)

Nancy Meyers’ romantic comedy It’s Complicated (Universal), starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, took ninth place with $6.2 million as it edged closer to $100 million, while Jackie Chan’s The Spy Next Door (Lionsgate) took a 51% dive to take tenth place with $4.7 million and $18.7 million total.

The Abandoned (Film), Poster and Trailer

Feb 23, 2007 This was the trailer that you couldn’t see on television. Check it out the House won’t let these people live, death waits for no one. The Abandoned being released by Lionsgate and After Dark Films

The Abandoned is a 2006 horror film about an American film producer who returns to her homeland, Russia, to discover the truth about her family history.

A Russian peasant family is sitting down to dinner when a run-down, overheating truck comes to a halt in the front yard. The father opens the door to find a now dead woman, obviously murdered, and two crying infants in the seat next to her.

Fast forward 40 years. We meet Marie Jones who has been summoned back to Russia by a notary who claims to have found her long dead parents and the home they once owned: the Kardinovsky Farm. As she mounts the steps to his office, she runs into someone, but brushes it off.

After meeting with the notary, who explains he found no other living heirs, she sets out to visit and claim her parent’s home. She arrives at the house where her mother died and is “attacked” by a now very old mother who, in Russian, insists that she not go to the Kardinovsky Farm. They’re interrupted by Anitoly, her guide, the only person willing to venture to the farm at night. Read more …

Konami Announces Saw Video Game for XBoX 360, PS3 and PC Review + 8 Screeshots

Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc., today announced Saw is being developed for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system, PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC.

Saw will invite players to engage in a horrific game inside the treacherous corridors of an abandoned insane asylum that has been transformed into a gauntlet of terrors by Jigsaw, Saw’s maniacal antagonist. SAW will expand the survival horror genre by allowing players, for the first time to experience the terror of Saw on the game console, by pitting them against Jigsaw, his brutal traps and the mind bending puzzles that have become synonymous with the film franchise.

“Konami, partnering with Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures to create SAW was a very organic synergy,” said David Daniels, Director of Marketing for Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. “As the leader in the survival horror genre, it only made sense to align with one of cinema’s most iconic horror franchises to create an entirely new survival horror experience.”

Producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules of Twisted Pictures added, “Through the years, it has been important to us to consistently find new ways to engage and thrill horror audiences, this game is the next step, transporting fans directly into Jigsaw’s labyrinth.” Read more …