Entertainment > Movies

Posted on Mon, Nov. 09, 2009

e-mail	print	RSS	reprint
AIM	Digg it	del.icio.us	Facebook

'Christmas Carol' is weekend No. 1

By Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Jim Carrey's Scrooge collected holiday donations from movie fans with his new take on "A Christmas Carol," which took in $31 million to open as the weekend's top movie.

The Disney animated version of the Charles Dickens classic knocked the King of Pop out of the No. 1 spot as "Michael Jackson's This Is It" slipped to second place with $14 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Sony's "This Is It," presenting rehearsal performances Jackson shot before his death last June, raised its domestic total to $57.9 million. Worldwide, "This Is It" has taken in $186.5 million.

Featuring Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge and also as the three holiday ghosts that show Scrooge the error of his miserly ways, "A Christmas Carol" came in on the low end of Disney's expectations for opening weekend.

The weekend brought a rush of other new movies, led by George Clooney's comedy "The Men Who Stare at Goats," which finished at No. 3 with $13.3 million. The Overture Films release is a satiric look at U.S. military efforts to create "warrior monks" who can predict the future or walk through walls.

With nearly two months of playing time through the holidays, Disney is counting on steady business for "A Christmas Carol," particularly over Thanksgiving weekend and in the buildup to Christmas itself.

Director Robert Zemeckis shot the movie using the same performance-capture technology used on his 2004 holiday offering "The Polar Express." Carrey and his co-stars acted on a bare soundstage as digital cameras caught their performances, with computer animators later adding costumes, sets, props and other effects.

"A Christmas Carol" came in ahead of "Polar Express," which had an opening weekend of $23.5 million. But it fell well short of the $55.1 million opening for Carrey's previous holiday tale, "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas" in 2000.

"A Christmas Carol" did three-fourths of its business in theaters showing 3-D versions. Huge-screen IMAX theaters, which represented only 5 percent of the theater count, accounted for $4.5 million, or 14.5 percent, of the movie's gross, said Greg Foster, IMAX chairman and president.

Estimated ticket sales are for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released today.

1. "A Christmas Carol," $31 million

2. "Michael Jackson's This Is It," $14 million

3. "The Men Who Stare at Goats," $13.3 million

4. "The Fourth Kind," $12.5 million

5. "Paranormal Activity," $8.6 million

6. "The Box," $7.9 million

7. "Couples Retreat," $6.4 million

8. "Law Abiding Citizen," $6.2 million

9. "Where the Wild Things Are," $4.2 million

10. "Astro Boy," $2.6 million