Weekend Recap: Who says you can’t put a price on love?

As expected, what a weekend for movies. Valentine’s Day earned the biggest take for President’s Day weekend and the third highest February opening ever. Together it’s the biggest February weekend in history. Overall the box office jumped 90 percent this weekend.

I think the amazing part is how deep this runs and how genre is not the biggest factor. Just because it’s Valentine’s Day (couples) or President’s Day (kids off school) doesn’t mean R-rated The Wolfman can’t snag a pretty portion of the pot. Even Avatar had an incredible ninth weekend, actually making more than it did last week.

1. Valentine’s Day – $56.4 M (weekend) … $56.4 M (gross)
2. The Wolfman – $31.7 … $31.7
3. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief – $31.4 M … $31.4
4. Avatar – $23.5 M … $661.1 M
5. Dear John – $16.5 M (weekend) … $53.9 M (gross)
6. The Tooth Fairy – $6 M … $42 M
7. From Paris With Love – $5.5 M … $16.6 M
8. Edge of Darkness – $4.8 M … $36.3 M
9. Crazy Heart – $4.2 M … $16.7 M
10. When in Rome – $3.7 M … $26.3 M

First off it’s worth noting that while “Wolfman” edged “Percy” for second, it’s the other way around for the 4-day weekend, so you can debate amongst yourselves as to whether I truly predicted incorrectly. If you look at my cash predictions, however, I underestimated our furry friend as well as Valetine’s Day, and grossly. The latter earned $18 M more than my estimate and the former $10 M. “Percy” was right about where I had guessed.

Elsewhere in the top ten, Crazy Heart continues to perform while duds like From Paris With Love, Edge of Darkness and When in Rome keep falling. Holding up well is Dwayne Johnson and The Tooth Fairy, losing only $500,000 compared to last week with the help of the holiday weekend.

But the story is really about Valentine’s Day. I mean, movies don’t get any more obvious about their money-mongering than this one and it was absolutely torn apart in reviews because of how much craziness is going on. It just goes to show that you don’t mess with this holiday from here on out. We’ll see how Garry Marshall’s plans for a New Year’s Eve movie work out in a little less than a year. I don’t think that holiday is nearly big enough at the movies, but the first weekend of the year is generally a quiet one.