Box office

By DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE PRESS SERVICES

LOS ANGELES — Disaster hammered the weekend box office as the doomsday epic 2012 debuted at No. 1 with $65.2 million domestically and pulled in $230.4 million worldwide.

A Christmas Carol, which did not have the best of starts the weekend before, had a very strong second week, pulling in $22.3 million. That’s a decline of only 26 percent and a good sign that it should have a long life span. About 14 percent of the movie’s box office take came from Imax screens.

The indie movie Precious, which Lionsgate bought at Sundance for about $5.5 million, took in about $5.9 million in just 174 theaters in nine cities. That’s an impressive $33,762 per-screen average. The drama, which was executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, will extend to 600 theaters in 100 markets this weekend. It finished third, just ahead of Overture’s George Clooney comedy The Men Who Stare at Goats, which took in $5.7 million but is playing in wide release.

The top 10 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. 2012, Columbia, $65,237,614, 3,404 locations, $19,165 average, $65,237,614, one week.

2. A Christmas Carol, Disney, $22,308,913, 3,683 locations, $6,057 average, $63,272,757, two weeks.

3. Precious, Lionsgate, $5,874,628, 174 locations, $33,762 average, $8,699,180, two weeks.

4. The Men Who Stare at Goats, Overture, $5,861,753, 2,453 locations, $2,390 average, $23,038,050, two weeks.

5. This Is It, Columbia, $5,078,920, 3,037 locations, $1,672 average, $67,190,296, three weeks.

6. The Fourth Kind, Universal, $4,605,365, 2,530 locations, $1,820 average, $20,449,660, two weeks.

7. Couples Retreat, Universal, $4,164,940, 2,509 locations, $1,660 average, $102,045,330, six weeks.

8. Paranormal Activity, Paramount, $4,043,417, 2,712 locations, $1,491 average, $103,690,184, eight weeks.

9. Law Abiding Citizen, Overture, $3,796,327, 2,071 locations, $1,833 average, $67,190,452, five weeks.

10. The Box, Warner Bros., $3,158,368, 2,635 locations, $1,199 average, $13,179,622, two weeks.

MovieStyle, Pages 38 on 11/20/2009

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