Weekend Box Office: “Twilight,” “Skyfall,” “Lincoln” beat openers

"Twilight," "Skyfall," and "Lincoln" were the big box office victors over the Thanksgiving "five-day weekend"The “five-day weekend” over Thanksgiving has become a less popular time for Hollywood studios to release hot new movies than it used to be. As a result, the top three box office performers this year were films in their second and third weekends of release: “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2” at the top, James Bond in “Skyfall” in second place, and Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” in third.

Among new releases, DreamWorks Animation’s “Rise of the Guardians” fared the best with $32.6 million over five days, though that’s a lot less than the studio hoped for the $145m-budgeted family film. It should have strong legs through Christmas, avoiding complete financial ruin, but it’s unlikely to begin a new franchise. The $30.2m collected by Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” was more within expectations, though that film’s similarly high budget of $120m means it has an equally long road to profitability (awards nominations could help).

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the “Red Dawn” remake, which amassed $22m in its first five days  — not a stellar number, by any means, but a respectable one for a project that was considered to be in serious turmoil as it gathered dust on the shelf for several years.

On the limited release front, “The Silver Linings Playbook” scored a modest-but-solid $5.9m in its expansion to 367 sites, as the Harvey Weinstein PR machine revs up for awards season; “Anna Karenina” showed signs of life after a lukewarm exclusive opening, earning $1.1m from 66 sites; and the Anthony Hopkins-headlined biopic “Hitchcock” did $300,000 from 17 sites in a shortened three day launch.

Check out the full top 10 chart for Wednesday-Sunday below:

No. Title Weekend Per Theater Average Total
1 “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2” $64.0M $15,730 $227.0M
2 “Skyfall” $51.1M $14,499 $221.7M
3 “Lincoln” $34.1M $16,896 $62.2M
4 “Rise of the Guardians” $32.6M $8,926 $32.6M
5 “Life of Pi” $30.2M $10,389 $30.2M
6 “Wreck-It Ralph” $23.0M $7,060 $149.5M
7 “Red Dawn” $22.0M $8,078 $22.0M
8 “Flight” $11.4M $4,305 $74.9M
9 “The Silver Linings Playbook” $5.9M $16,080 $6.5M
10 “Argo” $5.1M $4,072 $98.1M

Source: Box Office Mojo