Mark Wahlberg’s slambang action thriller Contraband took the top spot at the box office with a solid $24.1 million opening that put it well ahead of the 3-D re-release of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, which opened with an estimated $18.5 million.  A number of “Top Ten” films suffered small declines though last week’s champ, The Devil Inside plummeted a steep 76.6%, a drop that reflected the film’s “F” CinemaScore.  Overall the total of the top ten films was down just 2% from the comparable weekend in 2011 when Green Hornet opened with $33.5 million.

 

Contraband, a remake of a 2009 Icelandic movie, demonstrated once again the potential for action films to score a Q1 success and Contraband’s total was eerily similar to Taken’s $24.7 million debut in 2009 (not to say that Contraband will be able to match Taken’s domestic total of $145 million, but it should be interesting to see how it does).  Contraband managed to attract an audience that was older (55% over 30), but nearly evenly divided between men and women (51% male), and they liked the movie giving it a solid “A-“ CinemaScore.

 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): January 13 - 15, 2012
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Contraband	$24,100,000	2,863	$8,418	$24,100,000	1
2	Beauty and the Beast (3D)	$18,490,000	2,625	$7,044	$18,490,000	1
3	Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	$11,500,000	3,346	$3,437	$186,747,000	5
4	Joyful Noise	$11,345,000	2,735	$4,148	$11,345,000	1
5	Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	$8,410,000	3,155	$2,666	$170,010,000	5
6	The Devil Inside	$7,900,000	2,551	$3,097	$46,247,000	2
7	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	$6,800,000	2,674	$2,543	$87,981,000	4
8	Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked	$5,800,000	2,849	$2,036	$118,781,000	5
9	War Horse	$5,607,000	2,856	$1,963	$65,779,000	4
10	The Iron Lady	$5,386,000	802	$6,716	$5,974,000	3

 

While Beauty and the Beast’s 3-D total was well below the $30.2 million that The Lion King brought in, it should be pointed out that Beauty and the Beast was a hit of a far lesser degree of magnitude than The Lion King.  And don’t expect Beauty and the Beasts grosses to disappear—opening weekend audiences gave the film a potent “A+” CinemaScore.  Working against the film over the coming weeks will be the fact that it is 20 years old and has been issued multiple times on tape and DVD, but don’t be surprised if Beauty and the Beast demonstrates enough “legs” that theater owners will be receptive when Finding Nemo is released in 3-D later this year.  Perhaps we are heading for a situation in which there are fewer new films produced in 3-D and more classic films that use the extra-dimension as the excuse for another theatrical run.

 

In third place was Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol, the clear hit of the past holiday movie season, which dropped just 42% in its fifth weekend in theaters as it earned an estimated $11.5 million and brought its domestic total to $186 million.  It has now passed the total of the original 1996 MI film (though not the attendance), and appears to have a good shot to better MI II’s total of $215.4 million.

 

While it didn’t please the critics, Joyful Noise, which earned a poor 35% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, managed to finish in fourth place as the Queen Latifah/Dolly Parton film earned an estimated $11.3 and please opening weekend crowds, which gave the film an “A-“ CinemaScore.  Given the stars involved, it was no surprise that the audience was older (65% over 35) and overwhelmingly female (73%).

 

Like Mission: Impossible, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows continues to demonstrate box office strength. It finished fifth in its 5th weekend in theaters as it dropped just 38.6%, and the Holmes sequel has now earned a solid $170 million in North America.

 

Last week’s winner The Devil Inside managed to make into the Top 20 list of the biggest declines in box office history by dropping 76.6% in its second weekend.  Paramount might feel some blowback on the next “found footage” horror film the studio attempts to market via the Internet, but since The Devil Inside has already earned over $46 million domestically versus a cost of less than a million.

 

While David Fincher’s American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo started slowly, it has demonstrated solid “legs.”  After a month in the cinemas, the film has earned $88 million domestically.

 

Meanwhile Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin, which just won a Golden Globe fell out of the top ten, but still declined just 40.5% as it earned $4 million to bring its domestic total to nearly $68 million and its worldwide cumulative to nearly $350 million.

 

Be sure to check back here next week to see how Haywire, Red Tails, and Underworld: Awakening, fare at the box office.