Well, while it wasn't the biggest opening of the year, James Cameron's long-awaited special effects opus Avatar debuted this weekend to stellar box office. The movie scooped up an impressive $74 million dollars this weekend, taking first place in the box office. While it's still got a long way to go before it brings in its rumored $500 million dollar budget, it'll do well over Christmas, as everyone wants to get out of the house and see a movie over Christmas, and this year it's the weekend; thus, it's the perfect storm for Avatar to string together some really good weekends.

In contrast, not a lot of folks bothered with Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker's romantic comedy, Did You Hear About the Morgans? The movie took in $7 million this weekend, good for fourth place, but a far cry from the heights of SJP's Sex and the City Movie or most of what Hugh Grant has done in this genre. I'm sure the fairly generic commercials didn't help this movie out, nor did its stereotypical view of rural America. It's never wise to insult the audience that eats this kind of crap up.

Disney's The Princess and the Frog had a pretty steep drop this weekend, sinking to second place with box office receipts dropping to $12.2 million dollars. Was Disney's attempt to seek out a black audience a mistake? Well, perhaps, but more troubling is the lack of any real Disney sparkle in The Princess and the Frog. Randy Newman's terrible songs weren't very helpful either. It's good, but it's not great, and when it comes to Disney's hype machine, we expect great.

Warner Brothers' two sports movies were also a mixed bag. The Blind Side has continued to excel, hanging onto third place this weekend with $10.03 million dollars this weekend. The movie edged right up to $165 million at the box office. On the other side of the spectrum, the incredible star power on display in Invictus continues to go mostly ignored, as the film drops to sixth place from last weekend's third on a take of only $4.17 million. Hopefully it does better internationally.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon, is running out of steam. Granted, this weekend's $4.37 million was good for fifth place, and the film has taken in nearly $275 million in the US alone, but at least it's still not raking in cash hand-over-fist like The Blind Side is. Amazing what a difference it makes when the movie's entire fan base goes on the same weekend, eh?

A Christmas Carol hasn't received much of a holiday bump. Despite being as impressive from a technological standpoint as Avatar, Jim Carrey as Scrooge never quite took off quite like folks expected. The movie picked up seventh place on the weekend before Christmas, with a box office gross of $3.419 million. Expect this one to disappear this week, as people are getting sick of Christmas spirit (and Christmas spirits).

Up in the Air, which is garnering major Oscar buzz for George Clooney, is one of the five movies getting a wide release this week. Still, even though it's only playing in 175 screens this weekend, it made bank. The movie took in $3.1 million, second to Avatar in total cash per screen, but with a much smaller footprint and the potential to bring in much more money next weekend.

Brothers was expected to garner some award buzz as well, but hasn't thus far. The film took in only $2.6 million this weekend, and looks to be gone as of next week. Same with Old Dogs, which has somehow turned a profit on its $35 million budget, but dropped to tenth place on $2.289 million this weekend. At least Disney can take some solace in the fact that their live-action division can churn out moderately successful comedies, right?

There are a lot of movies coming out this weekend. There are two sets of releases: Wednesday sees Up in the Air expanding and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel debuting. On Friday, you get an expansion of Nine (another major awards player) and the releases of It's Complicated and the very exciting Sherlock Holmes. Personally, I can't wait for Robert Downey Jr.'s take on the classic Arthur Conan Doyle hero.

Happy Holidays!