As expected, Walt Disney’s A Christmas Carol took the No. 1 spot at the North American box office this weekend with a solid $31 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Starring Jim Carrey (above), the Robert Zemeckis-directed 3D motion-capture adventure tale based on Charles Dickens’ classic opened at 3,683 locations and scored an average of $8,417 per theater, enough to crush its competition.
At No. 2, Michael Jackson’s This Is It delivered another strong performance, earning $14 million at 3,481 locations. Sony’s documentary about the late pop star’s planned concert series lifted its total gross to an impressive $57.8 million.
New entry The Men Who Stare at Goats opened in third place with $13.3 million. Playing at 2,443 locations, the film stars George Clooney (above, with Ewan McGregor and Jeff Bridges) as a soldier claiming he’s a psychic spy with paranormal powers.
Following at No. 4 with a three-day gross of $12.5 million was new release The Fourth Kind, a sci-fi thriller starring Milla Jovovich in the role of a psychologist treating mentally unstable patients in a small Alaskan town.
Things didn’t go so well for Richard Kelly’s new entry The Box, which finished sixth with $7.8 million from ticket sales at 2,635 locations. Cameron Diaz and James Marsden play a couple facing a tough decision when they receive a strange wooden box.
Meanwhile, Paranormal Activity slipped to the No. 5 spot, picking up another $8.6 million for an excellent domestic total of $97.4 million. The sleeper horror hit is currently playing at 2,558 sites.
At No. 7, Couples Retreat took home $6.4 million, lifting its cumulative gross to $95.9 million after a good five-week run. Following in eighth place with $6.1 million was Law Abiding Citizen, starring Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx, which reached a total haul of $60.8 million.
At the bottom of the top 10, Where the Wild Things Are generated $4.2 million at No. 9 ($69.2 million total), while Astro Boy collected $2.5 million for a cume of $15 million.
Also noteworthy this weekend was the solid opening performance of Lee Daniels' Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, which bagged $1.8 million from ticket sales at only 18 locations.
Source: Box Office Mojo (www.boxofficemojo.com)