Paramount’s Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol once again claims the top spot at the box office with $29.6 million with a total of $141.2 million
With 2011 coming to an end this past weekend, Paramount’s Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol once again claimed the top spot at the box office with $29.6 million, which, combined with Monday’s estimates of $8.7 million, brought its total to $141.2 million.
Not far behind were fellow sequels Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows from Warner Bros. at an estimated $21 million for a total of $136.5 million, and 20th Century Fox's Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, which leaped 30 percent to $16.4 million for a total of $92.7 million.
Sony Pictures’ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo took fourth place for the three-day weekend with an estimated $14.8 million. Including Monday's grosses, the David Fincher-directed remake has made just over $60 million so far.
Finishing the weekend in fifth place, Steven Spielberg’s WWI drama War Horse received a boost on Monday, claiming fourth place with an estimated $19.2 million.
Directed by Cameron Crowe and starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, We Bought a Zoo leaped 41 percent from its opening weekend and snagged an estimated $13.2 million, with a total of $44 million.
Animated feature The Adventures of Tintin improved 18 percent to an estimated $11.4 million. After 13 days in U.S. theaters, Tintin has earned $50.8 million.
In welcome news for the film business, New Year's Eve weekend was up at least 3 percent over last year, but the year-end uptick wasn't enough to close the gap in domestic box office revenues. Ticket sales came in at an estimated $10.21 billion in 2011, down 3.4 percent from 2010, or roughly $370 million.
Box office numbers were obtained on boxofficemojo.com.
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
