Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw, stars of The Blind Side have had to play second fiddle to the 90210 of the vampire world The Twilight Saga: New Moon, since both movies opened two weeks ago. But this week the moon has waned heavily, giving the based-on-a-true-story football flick it's moment at center field.
The Blind Side took in $20 million over the first weekend of December, pushing New Moon into second with only $15 million. Despite having been in theaters for two weeks already, both movies handily topped out the new competition.
Oscar-bait Brothers, which teams Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman, debuted at third place with $9 million, not bad for a rated-R flick that only has bitterness and dramatic tension, and shirtless Gyllenhaal to offer holiday audiences.
Limply marketed Armored bowed in at a depressing seventh place with only an estimated $6.5 million, but that's better than Robert DeNiro's attempt at a holiday comedy, Everybody's Fine, which only took in $4.0 million to sneak the bottom spot in the top ten.
Justin Reitman's Up In The Air stretched its legs in a limited 15 theater release, banking a solid $1.1 million. Meanwhile, the sleepy Transylmania banked only $252,000 despite bowing in on over 1,000 screens. I don't know about you, but it always gives me a warm feeling when a really bad movie makes really bad money.
Disney's A Christmas Carol has shown the kind of staying power the studio must have been banking on when the movie was released a month ago. Jumping from fifth place up to fourth place this weekend, it's earned $115 million to date in the US. Match that with the $90 million it's estimated to have taken in Internationally and the film has scratched its way over its bulky $200 million budget. If it can continue to hold fast over the holiday season, it may just turn out to be a Merry Christmas for the movie fater all.
For the full top ten box office results, check out the chart below:
| 1. | The Blind Side | $20,440,000 - | Total: $129,264,000 | LW: 2 WR: 3 THTRS: 3,326 |
| 2. | The Twilight Saga: New Moon | $15,704,000 - | Total: $255,639,000 | LW: 1 WR: 3 THTRS: 4,124 |
| 3. | Brothers * | $9,700,000 - | Total: $9,700,000 | LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 2,088 |
| 4. | A Christmas Carol (2009) | $7,520,000 - | Total: $115,006,000 | LW: 5 WR: 5 THTRS: 2,546 |
| 5. | Old Dogs | $6,901,000 - | Total: $33,934,000 | LW: 4 WR: 2 THTRS: 3,425 |
| 7. | 2012 | $6,600,000 - | Total: $148,787,000 | LW: 3 WR: 4 THTRS: 3,220 |
| 6. | Armored * | $6,600,000 - | Total: $6,600,000 | LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 1,915 |
| 8. | Ninja Assassin | $5,030,000 - | Total: $29,790,000 | LW: 6 WR: 2 THTRS: 2,503 |
| 9. | Planet 51 | $4,300,000 - | Total: $33,966,000 | LW: 7 WR: 3 THTRS: 2,904 |
| 10. | Everybody's Fine * | $4,027,000 - | Total: $4,027,000 | LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 2,133 |
