I'm filling in for Eugene Novikov, who usually does the Weekend Box Office report, so forgive me if I don't get it exactly right. Having perused the reports from the last few weeks, I get the impression that this Avatar thing is something of a big deal, and that its mighty box-office haul is a thing of extraordinary magnitude.

James Cameron's azure juggernaut broke more records over the four-day holiday weekend. Its $54.6 million gross (that's Friday through Monday, not Friday through Sunday) is the best ever for any film over MLK Weekend. Its Friday-Sunday gross of $42.8 million is a new record for best fifth weekend, easily beating the $30 million that Titanic made its fifth time out. This was Avatar's fifth time in the No. 1 spot, too, making it the first film to accomplish that feat since The Sixth Sense in 1999. Oh, and it cracked the $500 million mark on its 32nd day of release, beating The Dark Knight's record of 45 days. At this point less than $100 million stands between Avatar and the all-time domestic box-office record.

Surprisingly, there were other films in theaters this weekend too. One of them was The Book of Eli, a new release starring Denzel Washington, which opened to a robust $38 million for the four-day weekend. Among Washington films, only American Gangster had a better opening. Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, going into wide release after a few weeks on just a handful of screens, landed in third place with $20.5 million over four days. And The Spy Next Door, in which Jackie Chan signifies that he's done being a respected movie star and would like to be a depressing embarrassment now, opened in fifth place with $13 million.

Oh, and while nobody was paying attention, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel grossed almost $200 million. This is a record for a film with the word "squeakquel" in the title.

The top 10 after the jump.
Title (Studio) - 4-day weekend gross (per-theater average) - total gross
1 - Avatar (Fox) - $54.6 ($16.621) - $505.1
2 - The Book of Eli (Warner Bros.) - $38.0 ($12,221) - $38.0
3 - The Lovely Bones (Paramount/Dreamworks) - $20.5 ($8,013) - $21.0
4 - Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (Fox) - $15.0 ($4,551) - $196.1
5 - The Spy Next Door (Lionsgate) - $13.0 ($4,446) - $13.0
6 - Sherlock Holmes (Warner Bros.) - $11.7 ($3,695) - $181.9
7 - It's Complicated (Universal) - $9.1 ($3,419) - $89.7
8 - Leap Year (Universal) - $6.9 ($2,760) - $18.6
9 - Up in the Air (Paramount) - $6.7 ($3,160) - $64.0
10 - The Blind Side (Warner Bros.) - $6.5 ($2,712) - $227.7

Next week: Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford try to cure a disease in Extraordinary Measures; angels and demons fight in Legion; and Dwayne Johnson stars in Tooth Fairy, for some reason.