For the second week in a row, ‘The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1’ took the top spot at the box office. The next-to-final film in the ‘Twilight Saga’ pulled in $62.3 million over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend (Wednesday-Sunday), bringing the total for the film to $221 million in domestic ticket sales for its second week in release. That makes ‘Breaking Dawn Part 1’ the highest grossing ‘Twilight’ film so far, edging out the totals from ‘Eclipse’ that brought in $214.3 million in the same time frame. Those numbers don’t even take into account worldwide sales, which have nearly toppled $500 million!
Jason Segel’s ‘The Muppets’ came in second, bringing in a total of $42 million over the five-days, with $29.5 million coming from the traditional three-day weekend. The family-friendly relaunch of the ‘Muppet’ franchise, which hasn’t had a film in theaters since 1999’s ‘Muppets from Space’, may not have brought in nearly as much cash at the ‘Twilight’ juggernaut but the film scored much better with critics. Currently, ‘The Muppets’ holds a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (the highest rated Muppet film of all time, even over those by Muppet creator Jim Henson), while ‘Breaking Dawn’ has a 26% rating on the tomato-meter.
The other two family films releasing this week, ‘Arthur Christmas’ and ‘Hugo’, took the four and five spots. The hip-hoppin’ penguins of ‘Happy Feet Two’ were still going strong enough to keep the number three spot above the new releases. ‘Happy Feet Two’ had a box office take of $13.4 million in its second week. ‘Arthur Christmas’, from the creators of ‘Wallace and Gromit’ took the fourth spot with $12.7 million. ‘Hugo’, directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the book ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret’, rounded out the top five with $11.4 million.
Indie films ‘The Descendants’ and ‘My Week with Marilyn’ made it into the top ten. ‘The Descendants’ picked up $7.2 million in its second week for a total of $10.7 so far. ‘My Week with Marilyn’ debuted in the number ten spot with $1.8 million.
Filling in the remaining spots were returning family films ‘Jack and Jill’ and ‘Puss in Boots’, earning $10.3 million and $7.5 million respectively, for the number six and eight spots on the final box office tally.
‘Tower Heist’, now in its fourth, along with ‘J. Edgar’ and ‘Immortals’, both in their third weeks, round out the top ten for the holiday weekend with the remaining spots.
Analysts are predicting that, before its run is over, ‘Breaking Dawn’ will end up somewhere around the $300 million mark.
