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It was a monster of a weekend at the cinemas, folks. Cloverfield made $41 million at the box office this weekend and killed the competition, just as we all thought it would. It was a big, freaking hit. I actually nailed the prediction of the gross almost dead-on, so I was really happy about that. And 27 Dresses got $22 million, another rock-solid box office hit for Katherine Heigl. Mad Money, that other new release in the Top Ten from Overture Films, made $7.7 million.

I should tell you right now — it was a total fluke that I did so well with my Cloverfield prediction this week (I had predicted $40 mil, so I was only off by about $100,000). I was reading Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere blog, and he was talking about this movie making something in the 20s. Then I actually went to see Cloverfield at the Cineplex Odeon in Winnipeg and stood in line for an hour waiting to get a good seat for this thing. Based on the lineups I thought my prediction would be WAY off. I thought the movie would make not $40 million for the weekend, but $80 million!!

Really, the joint was packed for Cloverfield and it was a pretty exciting place to be on a Friday night. After the movie was over, a few people even applauded. That never happens around here. (The moviegoers around where I am tend to be pretty miserable, in general.) I’ll submit my own review of the movie soon and tell you more about what I thought of Cloverfield, but I will say this: if you plan to see this movie, sit at the very back of the theater, and make sure the screen is not that big. If you sit near the front of a theater that shows this movie on a really big screen, you will get vertigo. They shot this movie on shakycams and believe me, watching a movie that was filmed by shakycams is a good way to get seasick.

By the way, for those of you wondering what that silly monster looks like — it looks pretty ugly. The marketing people who kept everyone guessing about the monster deserve a tip of the hat for their efforts; they did a good job.

On to records.

Cloverfield’s $41 million opening has set the January record. The previous record had been held for the last 11 years by Star Wars Special Edition. Their opening weekend was $35.9 million in 1997.

Business at theaters this weekend was good. The AP reported overall box office was $135.3 million for the top 12 movies of the weekend, up 39 per cent from last year.

The top ten, courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1 Cloverfield – $41,000,000
2 27 Dresses – $22,427,000
3 The Bucket List – $15,150,000
4 Juno – $10,250,000
5 National Treasure: Book of Secrets – $8,148,000
6 First Sunday – $7,800,000
7 Mad Money – $7,700,000
8 Alvin and the Chipmunks – $7,000,000
9 I Am Legend – $5,105,000
10 Atonement – $4,759,000

That is all for this exciting weekend at the box office! See you later this week for more predictions here at the Reject Report!