Box Office, Scifi | featured news

The weekend was very kind to last week’s one and only new release, Oblivion. Otherwise, the charts have remained more or less static since last weekend. Oblivion did quite well in the box office, making over $38.1 million; while this is at the bottom end of its predicted range for its opening weekend gross, it’s still a respectable sum, and the film can probably expect similarly impressive numbers in later weeks.

In anticipation of this week’s opening of Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus,” which is set in the Alien universe and is a sort of a prequel, I went to BoxOfficeMojo.com to compile box office figures for the entire Alien franchise, excluding the two AVPs (“Alien vs. Predator”).

J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 opened to a better-than-expected $37 million at the domestic box office after an aggressive 11th hour marketing blitz by Paramount. Including paid previews on Thursday, the period sci-fi pic has earned $38 million in its first four days.

On a scale of 10, Super 8 pretty much scored an eight by collecting $12.2 million on Friday, according to early estimates. (It also grossed $1 million on Thursday from Twitter-publicized screenings at 324 theaters.) The sci-fi adventure, directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg, was never expected to leave the train station with huge numbers, with industry insiders predicting a $30 million opening. But Super 8 is now on track for a debut of about $34 million. The PG-13 movie will likely fall a bit short of the opening gross of the 2008 Abrams-produced monster flick Cloverfield, which gobbled up $40.1 million its first weekend. But for a $50 million film starring a mostly no-name cast, this is still a solid start.

"Resident Evil: Afterlife" showed there's still plenty of life in the franchise when it posted an estimated $10.9 million to open atop the Friday box office.

Marvel Studio's "Iron Man 2" soared to the top of the domestic rankings with an estimated $52.4 million in boxoffice from its first day in release on Friday.

Continuing its reign atop the boxoffice, Fox's "Avatar" easily held on to the No. 1 spot Friday as it entered its fourth weekend, earning another $13.3 million.

I think the word we're looking for is... "WOW!" James Cameron's Avatar earned yet another $19 million domestically on Monday, its 11th day in theaters, which is almost $3 million more than last Monday, when it earned $16.38 million. The $19 million marks the 7th biggest Monday of all-time and it pushes the film's domestic total to $232 million.

James Cameron’s mega-budget epic raised eyebrows with its overseas boxoffice staying power, grossing $145 million -- a mere 12% drop from its opening weekend.

After earning an impressive $16.4 million domestically on Monday, James Cameron's Avatar added another $16.1 million on Tuesday! That's the second-highest number for a non-opening film ever (behind The Dark Knight 's $20.9 million) and third-biggest Tuesday of all-time, trailing only The Dark Knight and Transformers , which opened on a Tuesday in 2007 and earned $27.9 million.