Even though New Year's Eve fell on a Saturday Hollywood enjoyed a much better "weekend" after Christmas as every movie in the top ten posted a gain over the previous frame during which Christmas Eve, which basically "took out" the top movie-going day of the weekend (Saturday), wreaked havoc on the box office numbers. Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol led the way again as it earned an estimated $31.2 million, followed by Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows at $22 million, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked at an estimated $18.2 million. The overall total of the top 12 movies topped $150 million and represented a 1.6% increase over the amount earned by the top dozen films during the last weekend of 2010, when Little Fockers topped the box office.
| Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): December 30, 2011 - January 1, 2012 | ||||||
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| Film | Weekend Gross | Screens | Avg./ Screen | Total Gross | Wk# |
| 1 | Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol | $31,250,000 | 3,455 | $9,045 | $134,139,000 | 3 |
| 2 | Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows | $22,095,000 | 3,703 | $5,967 | $132,100,000 | 3 |
| 3 | Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked | $18,250,000 | 3,724 | $4,901 | $94,609,000 | 3 |
| 4 | War Horse | $16,940,000 | 2,547 | $6,651 | $42,969,000 | 2 |
| 5 | The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) | $16,300,000 | 2,914 | $5,594 | $57,100,000 | 2 |
| 6 | We Bought a Zoo | $14,300,000 | 3,163 | $4,521 | $41,787,000 | 2 |
| 7 | The Adventures of Tintin | $12,000,000 | 3,087 | $3,887 | $47,841,000 | 2 |
| 8 | New Year's Eve | $6,741,000 | 2,225 | $3,030 | $46,372,000 | 4 |
| 9 | The Darkest Hour | $4,300,000 | 2,327 | $1,848 | $13,200,000 | 2 |
| 10 | The Descendants | $3,650,000 | 758 | $4,815 | $39,675,000 | 7 |
It is fitting that sequels would take the top three spots during the final weekend of 2011, since they provided most of the box office muscle during a year in which Hollywood played it safe with big budget extensions of popular properties dominating the charts. In a year in which a number of franchises that had fallen on hard times, such as Planet of the Apes, X-Men, and The Muppets, were revived, Cruise's resurrection of Mission: Impossible, which was greatly aided by the direction of Pixar's Brad Bird, might just be the most miraculous recovery of the year.
Both Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Alvin and the Chipmunk: Chipwrecked opened a week earlier than the previous films in their respective franchises, and debuting during the week before Christmas did them no good initially. But both films have rebounded nicely and should end up closer to the potent performances of the predecessors than most analysts would have predicted after their less than stellar openings.
Mention should be made of Steven Spielberg's War Horse, which opened last week on Christmas Day. In its first full weekend, War Horse posted a major increase on New Year's Eve as its older audience (79% of which was 25 or older) was apparently un-swayed by the appeal of the typical holiday revels. The period drama has now earned $43 million, though it probably needs some Oscar nominations to widen its potential audience.
Spielberg's other holiday release, The Adventures of Tintin, continues to chug along. While clearly not a major hit, the film has already earned nearly $48 million domestically and close to $300 million worldwide. Anything north of $75 million in North America has to be seen as a plus for the franchise, and the Herge's Tintin graphic novels should benefit as the film winds it way through TV and home entertainment releases over the next year.
