It’s amazing what a few years can do someone’s memory. Mission: Impossible’s win over the Christmas box office has the movie industry yelling that Tom Cruise is back. However, Mission: Impossible 4’s five day total of $58.9 million doesn’t match Mission: Impossible 3’s open. The third installment made $47.7 million in its opening weekend (compared to MI4’s weekend total of $26.5 million). MI3 was considered a failure, with many blaming the film’s shortfall on backlash to Tom Cruise’s bizarre behavior at the time. Hollywood needs the PR win more than the box office win as December has been incredibly soft for the industry. While the Christmas box office was strong, it was not strong enough to give blockbuster results to any of the films that opened.
The Top-12 grossing motion pictures for the weekend, per data collected as of Sunday, December 25, 2011 are as follows:
Rank | Film Name | Distributor Name | Weekend Revenue | Cume Revenue | Locs | Loc Avg |
1 | Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol | Paramount | 26,535,000 | 58,970,359 | 3,448 | 7,695 |
2 | Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows | Warner Bros. | 17,800,000 | 76,553,622 | 3,703 | 4,806 |
3 | Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked | 20th Century Fox | 13,325,000 | 50,265,187 | 3,734 | 3,568 |
4 | Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The | Sony | 13,000,000 | 21,376,473 | 2,914 | 4,461 |
5 | Adventures Of Tintin, The | Paramount | 9,125,000 | 17,132,020 | 3,087 | 2,955 |
6 | We Bought A Zoo | 20th Century Fox | 7,800,000 | 7,800,000 | 3,117 | 2,502 |
7 | New Year’s Eve | Warner Bros. | 3,005,000 | 32,342,195 | 2,585 | 1,162 |
8 | Arthur Christmas | Sony | 2,700,000 | 44,168,002 | 1,804 | 1,496 |
9 | Hugo | Paramount | 2,025,000 | 43,652,413 | 1,236 | 1,638 |
10 | Muppets, The | Disney | 2,003,000 | 75,559,525 | 1,752 | 1,143 |
11 | Descendants, The | Fox Searchlight | 1,715,000 | 32,006,552 | 813 | 2,109 |
12 | Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, The | Summit Entertainment | 1,450,000 | 270,251,901 | 1,411 | 1,027 |