Avatar loses box office crown to cheap ‘chick flick’

IT had to happen sometime, but nobody expected the biggest film of all time to lose its North American box office crown this weekend to Dear John, a low-budget “chick flick” with a pair of little-known stars.

The romantic drama opened at number one with three-day sales of $32.4 million (€23.6m) across the US and Canada, crushing both industry forecasts and reigning champ Avatar, according to studio estimates.

James Cameron’s 3D sci-fi spectacular slipped to second place with $23.6m in its eighth weekend. But Avatar remained the top pick overseas, earning $76m. Its worldwide tally rose to $2.21 billion, divided between $630.1m from North America and $1.58bn from foreign markets.