Weekend Receipts: Dear Jake

Dear Jake,

For seven long weeks, you've been the only soldier for me. I'll always cherish those long rolls on the boardwalk, when we'd get ice cream cones (you loved chocolate!) and plan our future together. But I have to be honest with you, Jake. Since you've taken off on a dangerous secret mission, stationed at some godforsaken outpost somewhere in the cosmos, I feel as if we've been steadily growing apart. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think it would be best if we start seeing other movies. I hope you understand.

Fondly,

America

1. Dear John

Gross: $32,400,000 (new)

Screens: 2,969 (PSA: $10,913)

Weeks: 1

2. Avatar

Gross: $23,600,000 (cume: $630,093,000)

Screens: 3,000 (PSA: $7,867)

Weeks: 8 (Change: -24.6%)

It was bound to happen eventually, but who could have foreseen the great and powerful Avatar being unseated so definitively by, of all things, a chick weepie starring admitted internet love-addict, Channing Tatum? (But not one without its fans around Movieline HQ.) But why treat this like a defeat, when in fact what it really amounts to is a pair of rousing Hollywood success stories, greasing the development wheels on two deeply personal passion projects: Tatum's autobiographical male-stripper fantasia, and James Cameron's remake of Westworld starring Kathryn Bigelow as a comely cyborgette outlaw.

3. From Paris with Love

Gross: $8,120,000 (new)

Screens: 2,722 (PSA: $2,983)

Weeks: 1

Despite a lively ad campaign that quoted cheekily from star John Travolta own Euroburgercentric oeuvre, Lionsgate's actioner managed a soft $8 million, a number unlikely to budge much higher with today's Super Bowl festivities.

4. Edge of Darkness

Gross: $7,005,000 (cume: $29,097,000)

Screens: 3,066 (PSA: $2,983)

Weeks: 2 (Change: -59.3%)

Not even star a clever viral campaign -- in which Sprite-drinkers were encouraged to "Look Under the Cap!" for the letters H, O, L, S, A and E and spell out a secret word star Mel Gibson would reveal at some point on live TV -- managed to turn around Edge's misfortunes at the box office, with the film tumbling a hefty 60% from its ho-hum opening numbers.

4. The Tooth Fairy

Gross: $6,500,000 (cume: $34,333,000 )

Screens: 3,218 (PSA: $2,285)

Weeks: 3 (change: --35.0%)

Last week, I posed a brainteaser: "What are the next two words in the series?: Rock, tooth, fairy, ____, _____." I promised the answer this week. The truth of the matter is that I had no answer. I was just hoping it would start a funny commenting thread, resulting in multiple hilarious answers. God -- I feel so much better for having gotten that off my chest! But I guess I owe you an answer. So the answer is

Disco

Fries.

Thanks for playing, everyone, and have a super-duper Super Bowl!