The FINANCIAL -- Romantic drama Dear John, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, has topped the weekend box office, knocking sci-fi epic Avatar off the top spot.

Rediff.com reports that Dear John, a sentimental film set against American army background, autism and 9/11, broke quite a few records as it unseated Avatar in its eight week at the North American box office.

"Dear John," Hollywood's fifth adaptation of a tear-jerker Nicholas Sparks novel, sold $32.4 million worth of tickets in the U.S. and Canada from Friday through Sunday, according to an estimate from distributor Sony Pictures, according to Los Angeles Times. That's significantly above last week's estimates based on pre-release polling, which predicted that "Avatar" would stay ahead of the Sparks film. James Cameron's 3-D blockbuster ended up declining 25% on its eighth weekend to $23.6 million. Combined with the $76 million it collected in 120 foreign countries this weekend, "Avatar" increased its worldwide total to more than $2.2 billion.

The John Travolta over-the-top action flick "From Paris With Love" was a disappointment for Lionsgate, opening to just $8.1 million, the same source reports. "Dear John," which stars young actors Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, posted the highest Super Bowl opening, not accounting for ticket price inflation, thanks almost entirely to a single demographic: teen and college-age girls. The audience of the Lasse Hallström-directed film was 84% female and 64% under 21, according to exit polls.

It is also the biggest opening for a film based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, whose The Notebook grossed over $150 million worldwide in 2004, Rediff.com informs. Dear John is a romantic drama about a soldier, who falls for a conservative college student while he's home on leave. It also deals with a mild form of autism in the family. The destiny of the two lovers is challenged by 9/11 and the soldier's sudden departure to active duty. The movie, without sex and violence, could have a long run with the family audiences backing it up week after week.

'Dear John carefully distills selected elements of human experience and reduces them to a sweet and digestible syrup,' wrote The New York Times, giving the film a left-handed compliment, according to the same source. 'It may not be strong medicine, but it delivers an effective, pleasing dose of pure sentiment and vicarious heartache.' It added: 'In Sparks's novels, of which there are now 15, impossible, star-crossed loves, often shadowed by illness and death, have an odd way of producing happy, or at least blissfully cathartic, endings. He is a master of the feel-good weepie, a form of mass-market deep-tissue massage.'

Mel Gibson thriller Edge of Darkness and comedy Tooth Fairy starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson completed the top five, BBC reports. Another new entry in the top 10 was Oscar-nominated Crazy Heart at eight, starring Jeff Bridges as a hard-living country music singer.

Meanwhile, Avatar has become the most successful film of all time at the UK box office, according to the same source. UK cinemas have sold £71.6m of tickets for the sci-fi parable since it premiered on 10 December, surpassing the £69.17m Mamma Mia! took in 2008.

The weekend's top-grossing films are:

1. Dear John, $32.4 million

2. Avatar, $23.6 million

3. From Paris with Love, $8.1 million

4. Edge of Darkness, $7 million

5. The Tooth Fairy, $6.5 million

6. When in Rome, $5.5 million

7. The Book of Eli, $4.8 million

8. Crazy Heart, $3.7 million

9. Legion, $3.4 million

10. Sherlock Holmes, $2.6 million

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