2009 is long gone by now since we’re already in March but we still had a few old releases lurking around (I’m looking at you Sherlock, Alvin, Avatar and The Blind Side), making a lot of money and changing the order of things. So I said to myself, I won’t do this top 10 in January like everyone else, I’ll do it in March when everything will be said and done and all movies in there will stop swapping spots between each other.

The top 10 of 2009 in NA basically looks like this:

1. Avatar (Fox) $706.5M (Still in Theaters)
2. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Paramount/Dreamworks) $402.1M
3. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (WarnerBros) $301.9M
4. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Summit) $296M (SiT)
5. Up (BuenaVista) $293M
6. The Hangover (WarnerBros) $277.3M
7. Star Trek (Paramount) $257.7M
8. The Blind Side (WarnerBros) $248.7M (SiT)
9. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (Fox) $216.5M (SiT)
10. Sherlock Holmes (WarnerBros) $206.4M (SiT)

Half of the movies on that list are still running in theaters but at this point their spots are set in stone.

By now you probably figured out that 2009 was a very good year at the box office, but here’s the thing, I’m not going to bother ranting about how this movie did that or this other movie become a huge surprise, nope, I’ll just let the facts and numbers speak for themself.

General:

• the average ticket price was $7.5 from $7.18 the year before;
• over 1.412 billion tickets were sold (5.3% up from 2008);
• over 10.595 billion were grossed (+10% from 2008), the biggest year ever for Hollywood unadjusted for inflation;
• 518 movies came out in 2009 compared to 605 in 2008;
• The Twilight Saga: New Moon had the biggest opening of the year with $142.8 million;
• The Twilight Saga: New Moon had the biggest single day of the year with $72.7 million on November 20th;
• no movie managed to stay in first place for more then 2 weekends during 2009, Avatar managed 7 weekends but 5 of those were in 2010;
• 4 of the top 10 movies are direct sequels, 2 others come from established franchises and the remaining 4 are original properties;
• the weakest weekend of the year was September 11-13 with $76.2 million;
• the strongest weekend of the year was December 25-27 with $259.9 million (record);
• 44 were first at least a weekend, two of those came from 2008;
• 8 movies were first for 2 weekends;
• 32 movies made more then $100 million (record), 18 more then $150 million (record), 10 more then $200 million (2007 had 11), 7 more then $250 million (record), 3 more then $300 million, 2 more then $400 million (record) and 1 over $700 million (record);
• 16 3D movies were released or re-released in 2009, another record;
• 7 3D movies made more then $100 million and the top 5 biggest 3D hits ever all came out last year;
• Paranormal Activity opened in 12 theaters with $77,873 and went on to make $107.9 million in 2712 theaters (widest weekend) on a budget of $15,000;
• the widest release was Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in 4455 theaters on July 24-26, the biggest ever(The Dark Knight had 4366);

Studios:

• Warner Bros has 4 of the top 10 movies of the year, 5 of the top 25 and 9 in the top 50;
• 12 out of 52 weekends a Warner Bros movie was first;
• 6 WB movies made more then $100 million, 4 more then $200 million and 1 more then $300 million;
• Fox has 2 movies in the top 10 and 6 in the top 25;
• 6 out of 52 weekends a Fox movie was first;
• 6 Fox films have made more then $100 million, 2 more then $200 million and 1 more then $700 million;
• Paramount/DreamWorks has 2 movies in the top 10, 4 in the top 25 and 8 in the top 50;
• 6 out of 52 weekends a Paramount/DreamWorks movie was first;
• 5 Par/DW movies made more then $100 million, 2 more then $200 million and 1 more then $400 million
• Buena Vista (Walt Disney Pictures) has 1 movie in the top 10, 3 in the top 25 and 7 in the top 50;
• 7 weekends a Buena Vista movie was first;
• 5 BV movies made more then $100 million and 1 more then 200 million;
• Sony has no movies in the top 10 for the first time since 2005;
• what it does have is 4 movies in the top 25 and 10 in the top 50;
• 10 weekends a Sony movie was first;
• 5 Sony movies made more then $100 million;
• Summit Entertainment has 1 movie in the top 10 and 2 movies in the top 50;
• one Summit movie made more then $100 million in 2009 (guess that movie);
• Summit had 3 weekends in first place last year;
• Weinstein Company has 1 movie in the top 25, 1 weekend in first place and 1 movie that made more then $100 million;
• Lionsgate, Focus Feature and Overture each have one movie in the top 50;
• Lionsgate also has 3 weekends in first place thanks exclusively to Tyler Perry;

Read similar posts to 2009 at the Box Office: North America edition on Filmonic

Thunder strikes a 5th time in first place for Avatar. According to BoxOfficeMojo the James Cameron sci-fi epic managed to pull a 5th consecutive first place in the US this past weekend with $41.3  million (Sunday numbers are estimates) having the smallest drop (17.9%) in the top 10. The last movie that managed five weekends in first place was M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense in August 1999. That’s more then 10 years ago according to my limited mathematical knowledge.

So far Avatar has grossed $491.7 million in the US, passing Star Wars: A New Hope ($460.9) for 3rd place on the all time chart on Saturday. Next up is The Dark Knight ($533.3) by the end of this week. After that it’s smooth sailing for this blue iceberg to sink the unsinkable ship, Titanic ($600.7).

Worldwide things are looking even better for the Na’vi (and Fox) with a total of $1.6 billion after just one month.

In second place at the US box office we have a new entry, The Book of Eli starring Denzel Washington and directed by the Hughes Brothers (From Hell) with $31.6 million, this being the closest a movie has got so far to beating Avatar. This is also the second biggest opening in Denzel’s career (American Gangster made $43.5).

In third place we have The Lovely Bones expanding from 3 to 2563 theaters for a better then expected $17 million.  After bad reviews, a mediocre limited run ($0.4) and a general lack of attention from any awards ceremony many thought this Peter Jackson directed movie will bomb, but it seems Paramount somehow managed to turn this around by marketing the movie mainly for a young female audience in the past weeks. It’s still a long way from profitability with a production budget standing at $100 million but you have to start somewhere.

Rounding up the top 5 are the Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 and Sherlock Holmes with 11.5 and 9.8 respectively. The Squeakquel now stands at $192.5 million while Sherlock is a bit slower at $180 million and still on track to just pass the $200 million mark before the end of its run.

The US Top 10 looks like this:

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“Booyah”, “Shake what your mama gave ya” and “MunkYourself” are some of the hilarious words and catchphrases that will entice young children to see Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel and earn Fox another $360 million worldwide. There’s a lot of money to be had with kids movies. All you need is some voice frequency software, some passable CGI mammals and a marketing campaign soaked in recently popular music and the $$$ will roll in.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel has a release date of December 25th 2009 and will be going up again Sherlock Holmes and Avatar. Which will you be seeing?

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Oh yes, the first teaser for Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel has premiered on MTV, and it features six more X chromosomes than the original film. That’s right, The Chipettes, Brittany (Anna Faris), Jeanette (Christina Applegate) and Eleanor (Amy Poehler) are going to meet Alvin, Simon and Theodore and…

…God, who knows or cares what kind of mischief they get into?

[Check out the preview in the media box to the right, or CLICK HERE to see it at the source]

Here’s what I do know, both sets of these characters were created by Ross Bagdasarians Junior and Senior to sing popular songs pitched up in a squeaky Chipmunk-esque voice. When this was all originating with Witch Doctor in 1958, Senior Ross Bagdasarian was making novelty records and using technology unavailable to the modern consumer in making the Chipmunks talk and sing. This formula worked so well for him and his son of the same name that it wasn’t until 1982 for the Chipmunks collection of movie songs, “The Chipmunks Go Hollywood” on RCA, that a female character was needed to sing the Olivia Newton John part on “You’re The One That I Want” from Grease. Enter “Charlene The Chippette” who would eventually give birth (by providing the impetus, not through sexual contact) to the three Chippette’s now recognized.

In the modern era, since every Mac sold comes with the Garageband tools needed to pitch your own voice up to a Chipmunk, this property has become stale. With the Bagdasarians holding tight to the Chipmunk rights and with the previous kid-friendly CG/Live-Action combo film, it looks like the Chipmunks are never going to take a route that will be interesting to me ever again (like a serious story about Chipmunks in the music industry could be a Blues Brothers-like comedy with bizzaro twists). Why?

The cost to make the live action Alvin and the Chipmunks? $60 Million
The worldwide gross to date? $360,578,644.

See you this Christmas, Squeakuel. I will be drunk.

Read similar posts to The Squeakuel No One Was Waiting For on Filmonic