Terrible movie takes box office

By Thomas K. Arnold, Special for USA TODAY

There were plenty of winners and few turkeys at the box office over the Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend.

Warner Bros.' seasonal comedy Four Christmases, with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, rode the traditional wave of family appeal to the top of the charts for both the three-day weekend ($31.7 million) and the extended five-day holiday ($46.7 million), according to studio estimates from Nielsen EDI.

Warner distribution chief Dan Fellman says Four Christmases rose to the top on the strength of families, with 35% of its audience coming in groups. The film also was strong across the country, in urban as well as rural areas and in small towns as well as large cities. The film's top five markets: Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, Jacksonville, Fla., and Atlanta.

"We just hit everybody," Fellman says. "People wanted to laugh."

Another family film did what few movies ever manage to do. Disney's Bolt increased its three-day haul its second weekend on the big screen, grossing $26.6 million (up 1.4%) and snagging the No. 2 spot. The animated comedy, about the canine star of a fictional action show who believes his superhero powers are real, managed to squeak by the vampire saga Twilight, which took in $26.4 million. The brooding romance outdid Bolt over the five-day holiday ($39.5 million to $36 million) and crossed the $100 million mark (to $119.7 million), but it took a bigger-than-expected (62%) drop from its opening weekend.

The No. 4 spot went to the latest James Bond adventure, Quantum of Solace, which finished the three-day weekend with $19.5 million, falling just 27% from the previous three-day frame. The Bond flick's total haul so far: $142.1 million.

Baz Luhrmann's Australia exceeded expectations by about 20%, landing at No. 5 on both the three-day ($14.8 million) and five-day ($20 million) chart, while Gus Van Zant's acclaimed Milk, a drama about the assassination of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone, opened on just 36 screens but took the crown for per-screen average with a whopping $52,627 over five days for a $1.9 million total.

The weekend's other new wide opening, Lionsgate's Transporter 3, was seventh with $12.3 million Friday-Sunday and $18.5 million over the five-day holiday.

Overall, U.S. theaters grossed about the same as last weekend, but the tally was up 126% from the comparable weekend last year. This follows three consecutive weekends of up box office totals.

"What's encouraging for the business is if you remember we were supposed to have a new Harry Potter movie this Thanksgiving, and when that pulled out there was a lot of concern that the year-end box office couldn't match last year's," says Greg Kilday, film editor for The Hollywood Reporter. "So far, that's proving not to be the case."