2010 in numbers!

How will you define the year 2010 - the year of animation, the year of vampires and wizards, the year of dreams within dreams, the year of... oh, you could possibly think of a number of ways to describe it! But to put it simply in numbers, 2010 has seen US box office earnings of more than $10 billion for the second year in a row, 23 movies crossing the $100 million mark (quite less than last year's 30), 4 movies managing to cross the $300 million mark at the US box office, 2 movies earning more than $1 billion in worldwide revenues (the first such instance in the same year) and... well to put it simply, a pretty good year.

The Number 1 movie for the year, and deservedly so, was actually the third movie of a much-loved and talked about series, the Toy Story series. Toy Story 3 broke all sorts of records, becoming the all-time highest grossing animated movie, reaching #5 at the all-time worldwide revenue charts and #9 at the all-time US box office charts. Phew! Pixar continues to surpass all expectations! Not to be left much behind, DreamWorks Animation had a good showing with two of their films grossing more than $200 million at the US box office, How to Train Your Dragon and the final chapter of the famous ogre series, Shrek Forever After, alongwith Megamind grossing more than $100 million towards the end of the year. The surprise hit though was Despicable Me that finished #7 at the US box office charts for the year.

While animation ruled, the films of fantasy held their own too. Alice in Wonderland, surprised everyone with the strong following that it generated. With a cast consisting of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathway and such, a good performance at the box office was expected, but few would have put their money on this film finishing #2 for the year and #6 at the all time worldwide revenue charts, the second movie other then Toy Story 3 to gather $1 billion worldwide. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse continued to enthrall its set of devoted fans and become one of only 4 films of the year to cross the $300 million mark at the US box-office. The seventh and penultimate movie of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, rounded off the year in style for the fans of magic and wizardry whereas The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader hardly impressed with its weak numbers.

Iron Man 2, as expected, earned more or less as much as its predecessor and was #3 for the year at the US box office, keeping Robert Downey Jr. in the A-list category of stars. With a number of superhero flicks slated for 2011, this is a good foundation to work on! While success of Iron Man 2 was predicted by many, few would have known the fate of Christopher Nolan's Inception. While the movie had a famous director at its helm and a stellar cast led by Leonardo Dicaprio, the film did outdo itself as it captured #5 at the US box office and #4 on the worldwide earnings chart with $824 million collected to date worldwide. If that is not enough, the movie is creating quite a strong buzz to feature in the Oscars, and one can only say that any award that goes to this masterpiece would be well-deserved.

While some new kids arrived at the block, in the form of Will Smith's son, Jade Smith who starred in the hit movie, The Karate Kid, some veterans emerged again with unexpected successes. Adam Sandler impressed with his Grown Ups, while Sylvester Stallone continued to direct and act and hit the target again with The Expendables. Leonardo Dicaprio scored another hit with Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island and Angelina Jolie continued to match any other male counterpart in box office revenues with the success of Salt. A tad disappointing were the performances of M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender which had a famous anime series to emulate and Ridley Scott's Robin Hood that had too big a production budget of about $200 million.

Other things too happened during the year... Ben Affleck made quite a reputation in Hollywood with his directed movie The Town, the Saw series finally ended this Halloween, Facebook reinvented itself on the big screen and earned rave reviews in the form of The Social Network, Tom Cruise on the other hand could not hit it off with Knight and Day, a role which he supposedly took overriding Salt, Clash of the Titans did good enough to deserve a sequel, Gordon Geeko's long pending return in Wall Street 2 was so-so... An interesting year, an entertaining year, and with a wonderful line-up of films for 2011 awaiting our attention it is time to say goodbye to the old and bring in the new. Bring it on!