With more than 100 million people gathered around their TV sets for the Super Bowl, the box office took a more severe tumble on Sunday than expected. Weekend box-office estimates issued by the studios on Sunday mornings are based on actual revenue for Friday and Saturday but only an educated guess of what it might be for Sunday. The wonder is that the two top movies did as well as they did. Dear John, aimed at capturing women who had little interest in football, succeeded -- in spades. It beat out Avatar for the top spot with $30.5 million, just shy of the $31.12 million set in 2008 by Disney's Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour. Avatar fell to second place in its eighth week with $22.9 million, but given the fact that its audience has been predominantly male, the fact that it performed as well as it did -- it was down just 27 percent from the previous weekend -- appeared to confirm it as a continuing box-office giant. After 52 days, it has now taken in $629.3 million. Overseas, where it faced little competition from the game, it hauled in $79.3 million, down just 17 percent from last weekend.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Box Office Mojo (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date):

1. Dear John, Sony/Screen Gems, $30,468,614 (New); 2. Avatar, Fox, $22,850,881, 8 Wks., $629,344,204; 3. From Paris with Love, Lionsgate, $8,158,860, (New); 4. Edge of Darkness, Warner Bros., $6,855,371, 2 Weeks, $28,947,851; 5. Tooth Fairy, Fox, $6,629,595, 3 Wks., $34,462,568; 6. When in Rome, Disney, $5,549,129, 4 Wks., $82,045,140; 7. The Book of Eli, Warner Bros., $4,717,335, 4 Wks., $82,045,140; 8. Crazy Heart, Fox Searchlight, $3,567,671, 8 Wks., $11,105,401; 9. Legion, Sony/Screen Gems, $3,453,651, 3 Wks., $34,731,934; 10. Sherlock Holmes, Warner Bros., $2,535,174, 7 Wks., $201,484,470.