Box Office Recap: Breaking Dawn’s Leftovers Beat The Muppets

Summit Entertainment

The box-office slump continues as not even vampires, Muppets, and a 3-D kids’ movie about film preservation could prevent a 12 percent drop in grosses from last year’s five-day Thanksgiving weekend. Below, your Top Five movies.

1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 (weekend: $62.3 million; total: $221.3 million)
Teenage America saved money on turkey over the weekend, opting for this appetite-suppressing sequel starring Robert Pattinson as a sparkly midwife who delivers a demon baby via C-section with his teeth. Breaking Dawn‘s 10-day take is good but down a bit from that of 2008’s less disgusting New Moon, which made $230.9 million in its first two weekends without chewing through any umbilical cords.

2. The Muppets (weekend: $42 million)
This reboot’s success should give Jason Segel the leverage he needs to make that Janice-starring spinoff he’s always dreamed of.

3. Happy Feet Two (weekend: $18.4 million; total: $44.8 million)
This flightless sequel is lagging way behind the original Happy Feet, whose cumulative gross hit $99.3 million over Thanksgiving weekend in 2006. Penguins: over.

4. Arthur Christmas (weekend: $17 million)
Audiences skipped this well-reviewed 3-D holiday adventure in droves. Blame Russell Brand for the confusion.

5. Hugo (weekend: $15.4 million)
Opening-weekend numbers for Martin Scorsese’s first kids’ movie are solidly unimpressive, but it was playing on fewer screens than most of its competition (Paramount plans to put it in more theaters on December 9).

Filed Under: Box office, Hugo, Money, Movies, The Muppets, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1