Top Shelf at the Box Office

A slow week for new releases leads to a fairly pedestrian weekend tally. Disney reclaimed it's perch at the top of the list, and Clint Eastwood's latest runs into a surprising roadblock.

1. The Princess and the Frog- $25M/$27.9M

Well if Disney was looking to reinvigorate their traditional animation department, they must be pretty happy with these results. While not exactly moving mountains, the film did break the record for a December opening by an animated feature. Computer animated features will likely continue to rule the roost from here on out, but at least this shows that there is a place for the original hand drawn variety.

2. The Blind Side- $15.5M/$150M

Extremely strong word of mouth continues to surge Sandra Bullock's football drama forward, breaking the $150M barrier in record time for a film of it's type.

3. Invictus- $9.09M

I'm not sure what to make of this, but Clint Eastwood's Nelson Mandela biopic seems to have hit a roadblock the size of an offensive lineman. Given it's high powered cast, and Eastwood's directing pedigree this has to be something of a disappointment, especially in the face of such strong numbers coming from The Blind Side, both sports-themed films. Perhaps it's because Invictus deals with the sport of rugby, rather than football? Although the marketing for Invictus dealt more with the Mandela aspect than the sports one, perhaps people only have the desire for one sports drama at a time, and decided on the one that is decidedly more light weight.

4. The Twilight Saga: New Moon- $8M/$267M

New Moon continues to chug along, but at over $100M more than Twilight was at this stage of the game.

5. A Christmas Carol- $6.87M/$124M

Suffering the smallest drop among all returning films, Robert Zemecki's lastest computer animated film is following the same tract as The Polar Express did five years ago.

6. Brothers- $5M/$17.4M

Brothers continues it's disappointing run, given relatively strong word of mouth and a young, star studded line-up. Another war movie fatality, unfortunately.

7. 2012- $4.4M/$155M

8. Old Dogs- $4.4M/$40M

9. Armored- $3.5M/$11.7M

10. Ninja Assassin- $2.71M/$34.3M