‘New Moon’ Wanes, But Retains Top Spot

A light slate of Thanksgiving releases meant that “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” held the top spot at the box office for the second straight week, despite a drop of 70 percent in ticket sales from its opening week.

Weekend estimates have the “Twilight” sequel earning $42.5 million, for a two-week total of $230.6 million domestically.

Other notes from the weekend:

• “The Blind Side” gained momentum, moving up to second place with a $40.1 million weekend take (up 17 percent from last week) on positive word-of-mouth.
• The three new releases of the weekend performed as good as could be expected: “Old Dogs” beat poor reviews to come in fourth with $16.8 million; “Ninja Assassin” came in sixth with $13.1 million; “The Road” opened in limited release to $1.5 million, with a $13,721 per-screen average.
• “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” the Wes Anderson stop-motion pic, opened to wider release around the nation and wound up in ninth place with just over $7 million.
• “The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” opened in another 169 theatres nationwide, and gained momentum in the process. It jumps from 16th place to 12th, with a weekend take of $1.2 million.

Here’s the Top Five breakdown, from BoxOfficeMojo.com

WEEKEND TOP 5 STUDIO ESTIMATES, NOVEMBER 27-29, 2009

Rank. Movie Title (Distributor)
Weekend Gross | Theaters | Total Gross | Week #

1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Summit Entertainment)
$42.5 million | 4,042 | $230.7 million | 2

2. The Blind Side (Warner Bros.)
$40.1 million | 3,140 | $100.3 million | 2

3. 2012 (Sony / Columbia)
$18.0 million | 3,444 | $138.8 million | 3

4. Old Dogs (Buena Vista)
$16.8 million | 3,425 | $24.1 million | 1

5. A Christmas Carol (2009) (Buena Vista)
$16.0 million | 3,013 | $105.4 million | 4