Professors of Mayan history have said that its premise is based on a profound misconception about the nature of the Mayan calendar, while critics have panned its warmed over disaster film clichés, but 2012 easily took the weekend box office crown by scoring the seventh largest November opening ever, an estimated $65 million.  2012 reached a wide demographic here in the States where males made up 52% of an audience that included a sizable portion of older viewers (55% over 25). Overall the take from the top ten box office movies was down just slightly from last year when Quantum of Solace opened to $67.5 million.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): November 13 -15, 2009

Rank

Film

Weekend Gross

Screens

Avg./Screen

1

2012

$65,000,000

3,404

$19,095

2

A Christmas Carol

$22,325,000

3,683

$6,062

3

The Men Who Stare at Goats

$6,200,000

2,453

$2,528

4

Precious

$6,090,000

174

$35,000

5

Michael Jackson's This Is It

$5,100,000

3,037

$1,679

6

The Fourth Kind

$4,744,000

2,530

$1,875

7

Couples Retreat

$4,253,000

2,509

$1,695

8

Paranormal Activity

$4,200,000

2,712

$1,549

9

Law Abiding Citizen

$3,932,000

2,071

$1,899

10

The Box

$3,185,000

2,635

$1,209


Roland (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) Emmerich’s latest cinematic assault on the planet earned a robust $19,095 per theater here, but the film is performing even better outside the U.S., where the appetite for disaster appears to be stronger.  2012 has earned $160 million overseas, giving it a worldwide total of $225 million.  Even though the John Cusack-starring film will probably fade quickly domestically in the face of severe competition from the hordes of "Twi-hards" who will storm theaters next weekend, 2012 will likely earn more than half a billion dollars worldwide.

 

In spite of an aggressive TV advertising campaign, the other new film debuting this week, the British import, Pirate Radio, walked the plank as it debuted at #11 with a decidedly mediocre per-theater average of just $3,253.

 

After a somewhat disappointing debut last week, Robert Zemeckis’ motion capture version of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol showed some excellent legs dropping just 25.7% while earning $22.3 million and finishing in second place.  The George Clooney-starring comedy, The Men Who Stare At Goats fell 51% in its second weekend, but still managed to hang on to third place thanks to an estimated total of $6.2 million.

 

In fourth place was the searing drama Precious, which managed the unheard of feat of landing a top five finish in spite of being shown in just 174 theaters.  The neo-realist saga of an abused overweight pregnant teenager managed a stellar $35,000 per venue.  Lionsgate plans to expand Precious to 600 theaters this coming weekend.  Having earned nearly $9 million in two weekends of very limited release, Precious appears to be the art house hit of the season with potential "legs" that could stretch well into 2010 with a little help from Oscar.

 

Also doing well in  very limited release is Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, a stop-motion hipster adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's story that has definite cult film potential.

 

Two top ten films, the concert movie This Is It, and the alien abduction saga The Fourth Kind, both dropped 61%.  Michael Jackson’s This Is It has now made over $68 million domestically, but that represents just 30% of its worldwide total.

 

Two other top ten movies, Paranormal Activity and Couples Retreat, crossed the $100 million mark this weekend.  Paranormal, which has now earned $103.8 million, declined 49% while earning $4.2 million and finishing at #8 in its 8th weekend of release, while Couples Retreat fell just 30.6% and finished in 7th while running its cumulative to $102.1 million.