Christmas Carol Captures Weekend Crown

The holidays arrived early at the box office, as Disney’s A Christmas Carol handily beat out a trio of newcomers to top the weekend charts.

The stereoscopic 3-D film, which director Robert Zemeckis created with the motion-capture technique he previously used on Beowulf and The Polar Express, grossed $31 million in its debut weekend.

That number was a bit lower than some commentators had expected ‘ reviews were decidedly mixed ‘ though it outperformed Zemeckis’ other mo-cap movies. The Polar Express opened with $23 million in 2004 and went on to a worldwide total of more than $300 million (including holiday releases and the IMAX version), while Beowulf opened in 2007 with $27 million on its way to a worldwide gross of $196 million.

Hanging on at No.2 was Michael Jackson’s This is It, with a $14 million weekend, followed by newcomers The Men Who Stare At Goats with $13.3 million, and The Fourth Kind with $12.5 million. The Box opened in sixth place with $7.9 million.

Other animated and VFX fare included Where the Wild Things Are, which landed in 9th place with a weekend gross of $4.2 million for a total of $69.3 million, and Astro Boy, which slipped to 10th place with $2.6 million for the weekend and a domestic total of $15 million.