Three more films are lining up to enter the box office battle with James Cameron’s Avatar for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, as January proves to be anything but dull for new movie releases.
Up first is the post-apocalyptic action film The Book of Eli, which stars Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis. The Warner Bros. release has garnered good anticipatory buzz from a solid promotional campaign plus the high profile of its stars. It opens in more than 3,100 cinemas.
Also new this week is the family action comedy The Spy Next Door, starring Jackie Chan as a babysitting super spy. The Lionsgate film will appear in more than 2,900 theaters.
Expanding this week is The Lovely Bones, the new film from Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. The DreamWorks-Paramount release, adapted from the popular Alice Seybold novel, features dream-like visual effects from Weta Digital and will ramp up to just under 2,600 cinemas after about a month in limited release.
Avatar continues to perform incredibly well as it heads for its fifth weekend in release. The film has to date grossed $446 million domestically and $974 million overseas for a total of $1.4 billion. The question remains whether the film will be able to top the all-time record of $1.8 billion held by Titanic, another Cameron film.
