Box Office - Slow Start for Mel's 'Edge of Darkness'

The answer is, no, people aren't all that excited to have Mel Gibson back. His new film, Edge of Darkness, which got pretty good reviews and plenty of promotion, came out flat against Avatar on Friday and will probably just surpass $15 million for the weekend. The Friday estimate, $5.6 million, is well below most projections for the film. So that means Avatar wins its seventh weekend, which is almost not even worth trumpeting at this point, or at least it feels that way. In reality, seven weeks on top is beyond tremendous in this environment, but Avatar has just been so consistent there's almost no trick to it now. By the end of this weekend, Avatar will be within $10 million of the US box office record held by Titanic, and how in the world did $600 million ever become a moot point? Avatar will zoom within striking distance of $2 billion worldwide and it still has a couple hundred million more to go. I don't expect Avatar to lose next weekend either, by the way, meaning it will hold the number one slot for eight full weeks. The Valentine's Day weekend is simply too crowded for Avatar to earn another $20 million in that frame, which may be what it takes to win against several big movies. When in Rome, which won't be any big deal, looks pretty good in comparison to the expectations for Edge of Darkness. Bad reviews, less bankable leading actor, not as much promotion, stupid premise, and Rome will still get past $10 million, which is slightly more than it was given credit for earlier in the week. One more point about Edge of Darkness: Its target audience, Mel's audience, now skews a little older and may not be the opening night crowd. It's still not going to beat Avatar, which traditionally has explosive Saturdays and already has a good lead of about $2 million after one night, but there's a chance Gibson's movie plays even or maybe a little stronger on Saturday and Sunday than a similar film would if it went after the younger crowd. Still, that wouldn't give Mel a $20 million opening, which is what it looked like it would get.