Weekend US box office report: The Princess And The Frog is box office royalty

Disney's long-awaited return to traditional animation hit this weekend, and The Princess And The Frog was more princess than frog as it captured top spot in the box office. While it's already been receiving limited release, in its first week wide, the Disney film took in $25 million. It's not a huge opening, but it is a respectable one, and given that schools will be letting out for the holidays soon, expect Princess to string together some good winter weekends.

Invictus, the drama about Nelson Mandela and the 1995 South African rugby team, picked up third place this weekend with an opening bow of $9.08 million. Given the star power involved in front and behind the camera, that's a little disappointing, but given that it details South African history and rugby, two things Americans don't know much about, it's not bad either. It could have been a lot worse.

Among holdovers, The Blind Side continues to perform incredibly well. The sports drama about an American football player and his adoptive parents picked up an extra $15.45 million this weekend, and breezed past $150 million this weekend. Between this and The Proposal, this has been Sandra Bullock's biggest box office year ever. Amazing that, at age 45, she's doing better than ever!

The Twilight Saga: New Moon, suffers another big drop this weekend. The movie falls to fourth from second, thanks to $8 million at the box office and another steep decline. Still, the movie crossed $267 million total in the US, which is nothing to be sneezed at. 

A Christmas Carol, Buena Vista's other stab at your holiday dollar, rounds out the top five this weekend, landing in fifth. However, on the good news front, the movie dropped only 11% off last week's grosses, which means that the Christmas season is finally starting to kick in again and this $200 million picture is feeling the rub. The question is, how well will it sustain as Christmas fatigue starts setting in?

Brothers had a pretty big fall this weekend as well, reversing the fortunes of A Christmas Carol. Apparently, people don't want to see families fighting, they'd rather see vampires and frogs smooching. It still took in $5 million, which, given the star power, isn't terribly good.

Aside from the comedy Old Dogs ($4.396 million, eighth place), the rest of the box office is leftover action and explodey films. 2012 hangs onto seventh place with $4.4 million, while Armored (ninth place, $3.5 million) and Ninja Assassin (tenth place, $2.7 million) bring up the rear. Aside from 2012's $155 million US take, none of them have been big money makers, but the only one to turn a profit so far is Old Dogs. Frightening, isn't it?

Out this weekend is a little sci-fi picture that you might have heard of.  It's this thing called... what is it again? Avatar, that's right. Avatar is out this week. Have you heard about it? Apparently it's kind of a big deal. 

Also out this weekend is the Hugh Grant/Sarah Jessica Parker vehicle, Did You Hear About The Morgans? I can answer that question:  No. I haven't.  Poor Hugh Grant; from Notting Hill to this.