Friday Box Office: Muppets Chomp at Twilight's Heels

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Beginning may have held to the #1 slot throughout the Thanksgiving frame, but holiday buzz lifted individuals plucky Muppets to some strong second place showing with $24.7 million over 72 hours, Jason Segel, Kermit, and Co. should ride the Rainbow Connection completely to some excellent pile of eco-friendly by weekend’s finish. Meanwhile, Happy Ft Two is constantly on the slide and Aardman Animation’s fellow wintry offering Arthur Christmas opened up having a modest $4.5 million Friday. Martin Scorsese’s 3-D fall family flick Hugo, however, loved a powerful debut on a small fraction of the screens. Maybe audiences weren’t quite prepared to ring within the yuletide cheer? (And don’t count the charming black and whitened quiet film homage The Artist, which first showed in limited release in only four theaters for any one-day take of $75,000, calculating $18,750 per screen…) 1. THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING Beginning PART 1: $16,900,000 ($196,178,000) 2. THE MUPPETS: $12,275,000 ($24,775,000) 3. HAPPY Ft TWO: $5,130,000 ($35,503,000) 4. ARTHUR CHRISTMAS: $4,550,000 ($8,800,000) 5. HUGO: $4,532,000 ($8,545,000) [Figures via Box Office Mojo]