Wait a minute Mr. Postman: 'Dear John,' 'From Paris' arrive (HWD)

By Paul Dergarabedian and Wiretap Staff

Oscar nominations week brings increased theater counts for some of the nominees with Paramount's "Up in the Air" adding 117, Fox Searchlight's "Crazy Heart" adding 580, Weinstein Co.'s "A Single Man," adding 13, Lionsgate's "Precious" adding 447 and Warner Bros.' "Invictus" adding 32 theaters.

No question that "Precious" stands to benefit greatly from the six nominations it received including high profile noms for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress and will see its fortunes rise from its pre-nominations domestic total of $45.5 million.

Last year's "Slumdog Millionaire" had $43.8 million in pre-nominations dollars and went on to earn another $97 million in post-nominations bucks. Of course that film went on to win the Oscar for best picture and that had a huge impact on its bottom line.

Still there is no questions that Oscar nominations never hurt a film and all of the nominees that are still playing have an opportunity to exploit the marketing benefits that such nominations can bring.

Much like last week's "Edge Of Darkness"/"When In Rome" match-up, this week's duo of newcomers has a similar genre disparity and thus offers male and female audiences the choice of the romance drama from Sony/Screen Gems, "Dear John," from "The Notebook" scribe Nicholas Sparks and the R-rated action flick "From Paris With Love" starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

The continued cachet of "The Notebook" ($81M) will bring fans of that film out in droves and straight to "Dear John" with its romantic premise and its two very appealing stars, Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried in this big screen adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel.

Sparks is no stranger to romance and his name carries a lot of weight with the female audience; it's no wonder since he also wrote "Nights in Rodanthe" ($42M), "A Walk to Remember" ($41.2 M) and "Message in Bottle" ($52.8M), all of which were turned into theatrical films with each doing solid business. Sparks also wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Disney film "The Last Song" starring Miley Cyrus and set for release March 31.

So here we go with another weekend under the continued magic spell of Fox's "Avatar," which passed "Titanic's" domestic box-office record on Tuesday and looks to try to top its eighth consecutive weekend as it reaches for even greater box-office heights and two months into its run, is presenting a formidable challenge to any new release that comes its way.