This Week In Movies –‘Avatar,’‘The Last Exorcism,’‘Flipped’

By Pete Hammond HollywoodNews.com: Last February in the heart of the Academy campaign voting season I moderated a few post-screening Q&A sessions with “Avatar” director James Cameron and various crew members. As we spoke beforehand one night in the lobby of 20th Century Fox’s Zanuck Theatre Cameron was bemoaning the fact that Tim Burton’s “Alice In Wonderland” was going to swoop in on March 5 and take most of his flick’s 3D screens, Now since “Avatar” was already the biggest movie of all time worldwide – by a mile – and that it had been dominating these screens since mid December, it was interesting to hear Cameron cry poor predicting that without “Alice” in there “Avatar” likely could do another $200 to $300 million and eventually reach a global total of $3 billion. To add insult to injury “Alice” (which eventually earned over a billion around the world) was a 3D conversion job and not, like “Avatar” , a “true” revolutionary pure 3D experience. Even then Cameron was talking about a late summer re-release with added footage not seen before theatrically or on the DVD editions to hopefully rectify this situation and put more cash in his pocket. This weekend 20th unleashed the new special edition of “Avatar” with eight minutes of new footage into 800 3D and IMAX locations earning a paltry $4 million (even with the higher 3D ticket prices) taking its domestic gross to $753 million but barely moving the needle on the mega-blockbuster’s worldwide total of $2.7 billion. Somewhere the N’avi are shedding a tear. “Avatar” apparently isn’t the unending cinematic atm machine we thought it was and it is probably safe to say $3 billion is out of the question, Jim. Nice, try though. Your move, Burton. “Avatar” managed 12th place on the boxoffice chart which was dominated by a real cliffhanger in the top two positions with new releases, “The Last Exorcism” and “Takers” battling it out for number one and bragging honors for the weekend. Lionsgate’s “Exorcism,” a nifty “Blair Witch”-like movie-within-a-movie blessed with sensational performances by Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell appears to have landed on top with $20.3 million barely topping Sony’s robbery crime drama, “Takers” which had quite a few of those at the ticket booth with $20 million. Here’s the thing though. Critics really dug the filmmaking style and smarts of “Exorcism” giving [...]