To: Hollywood. From: Us.

Man, it seems like only a year and a half ago we were collectively spending $260 million over the weekend at the box office, setting a record for the best three-day take ever.
Oh wait, it was a year and a half ago, the weekend of July 18, 2008, to be exact. The Dark Knight came out, and it was the only weekend we’d ever topped that completely arbitrary $260 million spending number — until this past weekend.
Thanks to strong showings from Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and It’s Complicated (in that order), our collective spending from Friday-Sunday, Dec. 25-27, was a staggering — and new all-time high — $278 million.

Not the first result I expected from Google imaging “Avatar.”

Curiously, this is only a month after we very nearly broke the record back in November, spending $258 million on the weekend New Moon came out. But unlike that weekend or the now-topped record set by Dark Knight, the Christmas box office takes weren’t bolstered by one enormously successful film. Whereas New Moon accounted for more than $142 million of it’s near record weekend and Dark Knight was responsible for more than $158 million in its heyday, the highest grossing movie of this Christmas weekend was Avatar at only $75 million. Sherlock turned up $65.4 million and Alvin and his rat friends made $50.2 million, almost guaranteeing this nails-on-a-chalkboard re-imagining will become an unneeded trilogy.

You haven’t seen the last of us (unfortunately).

So, what does this mean?
Well, first of all, it’s fair to say there’s a lot of movies worth seeing in theaters right now, from Avatar to The Blind Side (omg, still?!). Or, at least, there’s a lot of movies people are paying to see, like the Chipmunk movie. The top 10 biggest grossers account for $259 million, meaning there was another $20 million spent on movies that brought in less than $4.4 individually (which is what #10 Invictus collected).
Second, and perhaps more importantly, it might mean a shift, even if a subtle one at first, in the Hollywood paradigm that says big money only comes in the summer. Prior to this year that was true. The two other biggest box office weekends ever were in July 2006 and May 2007, when the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies were released. But this year, we were much more willing to spend in the fall — twice, in fact.
Does that mean the era of the summer blockbuster is dead? Surely not, but don’t be surprised if the notoriously clever marketing folks working for the big studios give us several presents next holiday season… though they’ll probably blow it by making them all Christmas themed.

Can’t wait.

As for this week’s DVD releases, I’m most excited about adding 9 and Paranormal Activity to my Netflix queue. Also, Glee Season 1 Volume 1 gets released. I haven’t watched this show, but have heard from several people that it’s quite good. So maybe catching up on video isn’t a bad idea since you can only watch the last 5 episodes on demand.