• $32.4
  million the amount chick flick “Dear John,” which is getting savaged by critics, earned in its debut
• $23.6
  million the amount “Avatar” made in its eighth weekend, which is still pretty solid eight weeks in source

• nine number of nominations for “Avatar,” the James Cameron megahit that’s already in record territory
• nine number of nominations for “The Hurt Locker,” the war film directed by his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow

Other major nominees

• eight nominations for Quentin Tarantino’s Nazi-killin’ “Inglorious Basterds”
• six nominations for “Up In The Air,” the George Clooney airline flick
• six nominations for “Precious,” including one for the usually-funny Mo’Nique

Best Picture changes

• This year is a weird year for the Best Picture nominees. Rather than the usual five nominations, the Academy has switched to ten, widening the field to the point that the types of movies that never get nominated somehow did this time around, including:

• pixar “Up” got a nomination, finally validating the consistent levels of commendation the 3D animators get.
• sci-fi “District 9” got four nominations, including one for Best Picture – not bad for a director’s first movie.
• popular “The Blind Side,” which had garnered praise for Sandra Bullock’s performance, got one too. Wow. Surprising.

Who got burned this time?

• » The well-reviewed Jeff Bridges/Maggie Gyllenhaal flick “Crazy Heart” got nominations for the stars (and for best song – we called it!), but not for Best Picture.
• » Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” got just one nomination (for Colin Firth’s performance), despite the crazy level of arthouse hype it got. The Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man,” however, did get a Best Picture nomination, which (despite their recent Best Picture win) is somewhat surprising.
• » “The Lovely Bones” scored just one acting nomination – that’s to be expected, as it wasn’t a critical hit – but it didn’t get anything for its fairly solid visual effects, which really sold the film. Peter Jackson did produce “District 9,” however. source

• $33
  million the amount of money IMAX lost in 2008, one of a series of rough years due to its films mostly being nature documentaries
• $150
  million the amount of money “Avatar” has made on IMAX screens alone – they’re headed towards a big profit this year as a result source

• $595
  million “Avatar’s” box-office take in the U.S. after a 7th weekend at the top; it needs $6 million to top “Titanic”
• $2
  billion the James Cameron flick’s worldwide box office take, which is well into the record books already source

• $1.29 billion in worldwide box-office so far source

• 3D is going to be the future. The one thing ‘Avatar’ could do because of its success – especially its critical success – is give permission to other filmmakers to think of 3D.
• “Avatar” director James Cameron • Regarding his wins at the Golden Globes last night – including best director and best film drama. The awards show favored crowd pleasers over arthouse flicks – “The Hangover” won best film comedy, and Sandra Bullock’s popular role in “The Blind Side” won best film actress in a drama. But really, Haiti was on the minds of the stars at the awards gala, with many wearing ribbons and giving words of support to the devastated country. source

• “Titanic was a ship. Avatar’s a rocket ship.” That’s how Chris Aronson, Fox’s senior vice-president of domestic distribution, put the success of “Avatar,” which is showing few signs of slowing down weeks after its release. It’s quite possible it could pass Titanic’s $601 million total by the beginning of February. Here are some numbers on the horse race with history:

Worldwide totals so far

• $1.6
  billion already, after just five weeks of release – holy freaking crap!
• $237
  million needed to topple “Titanic” and its $1.8 billion worldwide total

North American stats

• $41.3 million the film’s weekend box office after five weeks of release
• $491.8 million the film’s total box office – it should top $500 million Monday
• 32
  days time it will take “Avatar” to reach that total – it took “Titanic” 98 source

• $48M the size of “Avatar’s” fourth-weekend box office take, making it the first four-week movie champ since “The Dark Knight”
• $429M the movie’s total domestic box-office take, which is within shouting distance of the $533 million take of “The Dark Knight”
• $1.3B the movie’s world box-office take, which is just $500 million shy of “Titanic’s” $1.8 billion haul; this is gonna be huge source

• 47% of Netflix users take advantage of on-demand streaming content
• annoyed the movie studios’ take on the uber-popular product source