‘Mission: Impossible 4’ has decent Christmas weekend, but overall box office numbers continue to be soft

The results of the three-day Christmas weekend from Friday to Saturday were mixed. While Tom Cruise re-affirmed himself as a big box office draw with Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, the numbers continue to be weak. Cruise’s fourth M:I film needed just $26.5 million to beat Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and the other new films at the box office.

Mission: Impossible, directed by Brad Bird, topped the box office easily with $26.5 million, meaning that the film has now grossed $59 million since it had its limited IMAX opening back on Dec. 16. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount predicts that the film will make another $13.7 million Monday, which is a national holiday. That could bring its total up to $72.7 million in less than two weeks, which is close to the $76.4 million that Cruise’s last film, Knight and Day made in its entire run.

Meanwhile, Guy Ritchie’s second Sherlock Holmes film slipped from first to second, making just $17.8 million, according to The New York Daily News.

Alvin & The Chipmunks: Chip-wrecked and David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo finished in a close battle for third place. Alvin did barely better, though, making $13.3 million in its second weekend. Fincher’s film, which is the second adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s best-selling novel, made a disappointing $13 million.

Steven Spielberg’s first animated film, The Adventures of Tintin, which has been a major success overseas, has not been able to do the same business domestically with just $9.1 million.

The biggest disappointment of the weekend, though, was Cameron Crowe’s We Bought A Zoo with Matt Damon. The film made just $7.8 million, good enough for sixth place.

The films that made up the rest of the top ten include New Year’s Eve with $3 million, Arthur Christmas with $2.7 million, Hugo with $2.03 million and The Muppets with an even $2 million.

The Christmas weekend box office numbers really sum up just how bad 2011 has been for Hollywood, notes The Associated Press. Hollywood’s total box office for the year was just $10.1 billion, a 4.5 percent drop from 2010. "We always count on the holiday season to give us a big boost at the end of the year, and it just didn't happen....These admission numbers this year just tell me that we maybe have to set our sights a little lower in terms of attendance every year,” Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian told the AP.

War Horse and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close both opened on Christmas day, so their box office numbers aren’t available yet.