Nicholas Sparks is box office gold, especially for women. Remember The Notebook? That movie played really well (it made about $115 million worldwide) and made Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams movie stars. Seems like lighting hit again last weekend even with the Super Bowl and the smowmageddon in many states on the east coast.
Dear John starring Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum took in $32.4 million (and had a budget of $25 million according to box office mojo) and pushed Avatar out of the top slot after 8 weeks and making it the top grossing film ever on a Super Bowl weekend. (PS Titanic was in the top spot for 15 weeks.) It was a comeback of sorts for director Lasse Hallstrom best known for The Cider House Rules and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape who got his biggest opening yet, who has not had either critical or commercial successes of late. I like him as a director and would be glad to see him getting back into the game in a bigger way.
Women, especially younger ones fueled Dear John’s success making up 84% of the audience on opening weekend with 64 percent of the ticket buyers below 21 (according to The Wrap.)
Who says women aren’t a market? (I decided that I am going to end every story of women’s box office prowess with that question from now on.)
‘Dear John’ dethrones box office king ‘Avatar’ (AFP via Yahoo)
Screen Gems’ Box Office Diamond: ‘Dear John’ Tops With $32.4M (The Wrap)
I went into this on my own box office wrap piece, but I think playing the whole ‘girls of Dear John beat the boys of Avatar’ thread does a disservice to both pictures. Females, and the female appeal of Avatar were a big part of why the sci-fi spectacle wasn’t just a flash in the pan. Proof of that is the 26% tumble that Avatar took this weekend (small for most films, but Avatar’s biggest drop yet), which would seem to imply that Dear John was the kind of direct-demo competition that macho films like Book of Eli and Edge of Darkness were not. Besides, oddly enough, Avatar actually beat Dear John over Super Bowl Sunday.
I agree with Scott. “Dear John” looks dumb and laughable as hell. I have no interest in seeing this. I knew many women who flocked to see “Avatar” and love sci-fi as much as males do.
Glad Dear John made some money. Yup, females are an audience! For anyone who missed it The Onion has a funny article about Avatar being for the ladies too:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/james-cameron-says-this-ones-for-all-the-females,36392/
“but I think playing the whole ‘girls of Dear John beat the boys of Avatar’ thread does a disservice to both pictures. ”
Um, who’s playing that thread? Because I certainly didn’t get that from Melissa’s post.
It seems to simply be making a point about how the success of Dear John is further proof of the power of women as a film audience.