Weekend Receipts: Let's Hear It For Garry Marshall!

As expected, couples flocked to the multiplex en masse this weekend, dutifully gorging on the biggest star-sweetened confection ever manufactured in Hollywood. The Valentine's Day turnout gave director Garry Marshall his first No. 1 opening since 1999's The Runaway Bride, presumably clearing the path for the resurgent filmmaker's franchising of the entire Gregorian calendar. Audiences didn't stop there, either, nibbling on a pair of other new releases that will duel into Monday for the distinction of America's second-place sweetheart. Let's review the numbers:

1. Valentine's Day

Gross: $52,410,000 (new)

Screens: 3,665 (PSA: $14,300)

Weeks: 1

The category-5 romcom laid waste to the holiday-weekend landscape, earning back its budget in three days flat. Seeking to better understand and anticipate such perfect Hollywood storms in the future, Movieline's Bureau of Emergency Management broke the phenomenal gross into discrete, revealing data:

· $2.75 million per star featured on the poster

· $8.7 million per erstwhile Oscar-winner/nominee featured on the poster

· $52.4 million per Taylor Lautner featured on the poster

· $2.9 million per positive review on RottenTomatoes.com

· $6.55 million per pink baseball cap appearing in the film's official promotional stills

· $1.05 million per percentage point of Dear John's week-two drop

· $26.2 million per batshit Jennifer Garner talk-show appearance

· $1,200 per screen deficit behind the week's best average, My Name is Khan.

And of course you just know Marshall is kicking himself right now for casting George Lopez over Shah Rukh Khan. Go with your gut next time, Garry!

2. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Gross: $31,100,000 (new)

Screens: 3,356 (PSA: $9,267)

Weeks: 1

Buoyed by the best reviews of any new wide release and strong, unforeseen word-of-mouth among the American drug subculture, The Lightning Thief took a crucial first step toward franchise viability.

3. The Wolfman

Gross: $30,627,000 (new)

Screens: 3,222 (PSA: $9,506)

Weeks: 1

The Wolfman trailed The Lightning Thief by less than half a million dollars heading into Sunday night -- hardly a bad showing for director Joe Johnston's R-rated prestige-horror entry. Nevertheless, it proves that when it comes to genre revivals, there's still no match for Nispel the Rebootian. Take note, Hollywood.

4. Avatar

Gross: $22,000,000 (cume: $659,605,000)

Screens: 2,685 (PSA: $8,194)

Weeks: 9 (Change: -3.7%)

Avenging last weekend's unceremonious discharge from first place, the blockbuster wrote Dear John a get-lost letter of its own. I don't know what else new can be said about Avatar, other than that a mere 3.7 percent slide in week nine is pretty much just sick.

5. Dear John

Gross: $15,300,000 (cume: $53,178,000)

Screens: 2,975 (PSA: $5,143)

Weeks: 2 (Change: -49.8%)

Clearly Dear John's second-week gross suffered from a lack of Web-based Channing Tatum love entreaties. Either that or a deficiency of pink baseball caps. It could have been anything, really.

[Data: Box Office Mojo]