Weekend Box Office: Blue people keep Indiana Jones, the Apocalypse and the Tooth Fairy at bay

For the sixth weekend in a row James Cameron's "Avatar" stayed at the number one spot at the North American box office. Three new films entered the marketplace but only the horror film "Legion" made any sort of impact. Holdovers began to show their age as, "Avatar" aside, the box office began to quiet down following several weeks of very strong business.

With an estimated $36 million from 3,141 screens and a new cume of $552 million, Fox's sci-fi juggernaut sailed past "The Dark Knight" to become the second-highest grossing domestic film release of all-time (pre-inflation, of course). The drop from last weekend's 3-day holiday take of $42.7 million is less than 20% (if estimates hold), which is just incredible in light of how much the movie has made and how many have seen it thus far. If the successive weekend drops continue to stay in the 20-30% range, "Avatar" could finish up its domestic box office gross somewhere in the $650 million dollar range, which is a gross that few people if any could have predicted when the movie opened in mid-December.

Of course, the film that "Avatar" has in its sights next for all-time box office domination is Cameron's previous film, "Titanic". While it will pass the 1997 drama's $600 million gross within the next ten days or so, it will pass "Titanic"s global gross of $1.2 billion sometime today. As of Friday, "Avatar"s foreign take was at $1.194 billion.

Elsewhere at the box office...

Second place went to the new apocalyptic thriller "Legion", which grossed an estimated $18 million from 2,476 screens. Produced for a modest $26 million, this horror entry from Sony's B-movie division Screen Gems opened as the studio expected thanks to an onslaught of advertising since the beginning of the year. While "Legion" did respectable business on Friday with a $6.7 million gross, the film only saw a 2% rise in sales on Saturday which is never a good sign for a movie's long-term prospects at the box office.

Third spot went to another apocalyptic (in this case, post-apocalyptic) thriller with biblical overtones, Denzel Washington's "The Book of Eli" with an estimated $17 million gross. Off 48% from last weekend's strong opening, the new action flick from the Hughes Brothers now has a very healthy ten-day take of $62 million. Depending on how steep the drops are over the next few weekends, "Book" could finish with a take between $90-100 million in domestic ticket sales.

In fourth place was the second new release of the weekend, the family comedy "The Tooth Fairy". Starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Julie Andrews and Billy Crystal, the critically-slammed comedy could only muster $14.5 million in estimated ticket sales from a wide 3,344 screen count. Apparently, I'm not the only one who was mortified at the film's trailers, although I did find the dog hanging off the wing kind of amusing. Given how well "Avatar" continues to do, I'm sure Fox could care less how badly this film does.

Apparently, focusing on the tween girl market to sell the ultra-expensive fantasy drama "The Lovely Bones" was good for one weekend of decent business. Peter Jackson's adaptation of the Alice Siebold novel dropped by 50% from last weekend to pull in a paltry $8.5 million for fifth place this weekend. With a new estimated cume of $31.3 million, the film will have to do spectacular business overseas to turn any sort of profit for distribs Paramount and Dreamworks.

Sixth place went to Warner's holiday hit "Sherlock Holmes" with an estimated $7.2 million for a new gross to date of $191.5 million. The movie should cross the $200 million mark in the next two weeks and probably finish up with a gross between $205-210 million prior to its March 30th home video debut.

Seventh spot went to the first theatrical release of the newly-formed CBS Films, the Harrison Ford/Brendan Fraiser medical drama "Extraordinary Measures" which imploded with a dismal $7 million from 2,549 screens. While the movie was heavily promoted, mostly on the CBS network, the drama had the look and feel of a television movie and a familiar one at that. This never helps sell a film theatrically, but then again neither do universally bad reviews from critics (remember, dramas aimed adults live or die on reviews). While Fraiser's career isn't in need of extraordinary measures to save it (yet), Ford's sure is. Between 2006's "Firewall", last year's "Crossing Over" and now "Measures", Ford's career is on life support when he isn't playing Indiana Jones. Watch for this film to hit home video, or even CBS itself, in no time flat.

Rounding out the top ten were three holdovers. "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel" brought in an additional $6.5 million for a new estimated cume of $205 million. The Meryl Streep/Alec Baldwin comedy "It's Complicated" made another $6 million to inch it ever so closer to the $100 million mark (it now stands at $98.5 million), while Sandra Bullock's runaway hit drama "The Blind Side" brought in another $4.5 million to bring its new estimated total to $234 million to date.

Next weekend, Mel Gibson returns to being in front of the camera after an eight-year absence with the thriller "Edge of Darkness", while Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel star in the romantic comedy "When In Rome". Will Mad Mel or Veronica Mars have what it takes to knock the Na'vi off their perch? We shall see.