Unsurprisngly, Jim Carrey's A Christmas Carol performed quite well. The movie debuted first at the box office, with a very impressive $31 million. However, when you compare that to Jim Carrey's last Christmas movie, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, it came up short, but still outgrossed The Polar Express ($23 million) handily. The Grinch opened with $55 million US. Now, the question is, will A Christmas Carol have the same legs that The Polar Express had? All parties involved better hope so, as it cost a staggering $200 million!

The other debuting pictures this weekend were also kind of disappointing. The Men Who Stare At Goats (third place, $13.3 million) and The Fourth Kind (fourth place, $12.5 million) performed well enough, but The Box was generally left alone. The latest picture from Richard Kelly managed only $7.855 million, despite a very wide release and a pretty forceful marketing push. That it took only sixth place has to be disappointing to all involved, especially devotees of Donnie Darko. The Fourth Kind undoubtedly ate a lot of the movie's business thanks to a very good trailer that promised thrills and chills that the movie itself didn't deliver.

Among holdovers, Michael Jackson's This Is It continues to make serious money for Sony. The film's $14 million second weekend was a small drop from last weekend's first place $23 million, and so far the movie has grossed an impressive $127 million internationally, which is great for a concert movie.

Paranormal Activity also continues to hang around at the box office. The bargain basement movie took in an additional $8.6 million this weekend, hanging onto fifth place at the box office. By the time you read this, it'll have probably crossed $100 million in the US, which is just staggering for a $15,000 film. We should be so lucky.

Couples Retreat falls to seventh this weekend ($6.4 million), but it is crawling closer and closer to $100 million in the States, sitting just below $96 million as we speak. Taking a bigger drop is Law Abiding Citizen, which dropped from third to eighth thanks to its 6.1 million dollar weekend. I'm surprised it held on as well as it did.

However, two movies that will be gone by this time next week are Where The Wild Things Are and Astro Boy. Wild Things managed $4.225 million this weekend, and is nowhere near its $100 million budget. It has made less than $70 million so far. Significantly more disappointing is Astro Boy, which barely held onto tenth at the box office this weekend on a meek $2.588 million. The 65 million dollar animated movie has managed $15 million in the US, and just barely at that. If this movie is going to make any money, it'll be in Japan. Not that I think they'll be pleased with what the Americans have done with one of their favorite animated heroes.

Speaking of animated movies, the latest Roland Emmerich movie, 2012, may as well be a cartoon. After all, it is mostly computer-generated destruction involving one of America's favorites, John Cusack. It's your big release next weekend, and undoubtedly the number one. The only other wide release is Pirate Radio, a very Brit-centric comedy that will probably not do as well as the DOG audience might hope. It looks amusing enough, but none of the people are well known enough to threaten any of the big-budget blockbusters.