The US box office had an unsurprisingly smoochy look to it this Valentine's weekend as date'o'licious rom-com Valentine's Day beat off competition from a young hero called Percy and a furry Benicio Del Toro to depose the more heavyweight romance Dear John at the top of the tree.
The Gary Marshall ensemble romance, which features a galaxy of Hollywood A-listers and Ashton Kutcher, took a hearty $52.4m, enough to cover its production budget and fuel those plans for a New Year's-set sequel.
20th Century Fox's ambitions for a Harry Potter-like debut from teen hero Percy Jackson paid off, meanwhile. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief took second spot with $31.1m, which, while dwarfed by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone opening of $90m back in 2001, more than justify the decision to bring the mythology-battling teen to the big screen.
Trailing just behind with teeth bared, emitting a strange howling noise, came The Wolfman on $30.6m. The classic horror tale has had a long and troubled gestation and so-so reviews, so chalk this as a big win for the lupine lunk.
Avatar, meanwhile, was shunted down to fourth place with $22m. James Cameron's sci-fi behemoth has now taken $659m in its nine weeks on release with the anticipated post-Oscars bounce still to come.