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Seventh is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which needed a hold as badly as The Devil Inside needs an ending. With a finish never above third, and a weekend total never above $15 million, a stellar hold this weekend would have helped the franchise proceed to the next step. It didn't happen, as Girl earned only $6.8 million and dropped 40%. It has reversed its way towards its production budget of $90 million, but it won't make much more than $100 million – if it gets there. This is a film that should have come out early last summer, as the hullabaloo over the books (and European films) has certainly dropped off. Give Girl With a Dragon Tattoo $88 million domestically, and only a little over $30 million from overseas grosses so far.

Eighth place goes to Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, which rises from the ashes to find itself in the top ten for yet one more weekend. The kid-friendly flick managed another $5.8 million, a drop of 39% from last weekend. Although the third film in the franchise is nowhere near the domestic totals of its predecessors, it still has earned $118.8 million domestically.

Ninth is War Horse, as Steven Spielberg's throwback simply doesn't get picked up during a season with lots of choices. War Horse earned $5.6 million and dropped 35%. The good news is that this one cost only $65 million to make and has a total so far of $65.8 million.

Finally in tenth is The Iron Lady, Meryl Streep's take on Margaret Thatcher. If you've read the reviews you know this one is all about the performance and not about the writing. Streep's performance convinced people to buy tickets, as The Iron Lady earned $5.4 million from only 802 venues. The Weinstein release earned a venue average of $6,716. The Iron Lady has a total of $6 million so far. In other Weinstein news, The Artist expanded slightly, moving up to 216 venues, and brought in $1.2 million. It had a venue average of $5,403. I saw The Artist on Friday, and despite a whole bunch of awards recognition, I don't think it will earn much more than $20 million. It was good, but a film like Hugo is so much better.

Overall, the box office was pretty good thanks to Contraband and Beauty and the Beast. The top 12 this weekend took in $114.5 million, less than a million behind last year's top 12 take of $115.5 million. Next weekend, and of course on top of the fact that Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star comes out on home vid, it's action weekend at movie theatres across North America. Haywire heats up, along with Kate Beckinsale in Underworld Awakening and Red Tails, a George Lucas-produced film about the Tuskegee Airmen.

Top Weekend Box Office for 1/13/12-1/15/12 (Estimates)
Rank	Film	Distributor	Estimated Gross	Weekly Change	Running Total
1	Contraband	Universal	$24,063,515	New	$24,063,515
2	Beauty And the Beast 3d	WALT DISNEY	$18,490,000	New	$18,490,000
3	Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	Paramount	$11,500,000	- 42%	$186,700,000
4	Joyful Noise	WARNER BROS.	$11,345,000	New	$11,345,000
5	Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	Warner Bros.	$8,410,000	- 39%	$170,010,000
6	The Devil Inside	Paramount Pictures	$7,900,000	- 77%	$46,247,000
7	The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo	SONY	$6,800,000	- 40%	$87,981,000
8	Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked	Twentieth Century Fox	$5,800,000	- 39%	$118,781,288
9	War Horse	Walt Disney Pictures	$5,607,000	- 35%	$65,779,000
10	The Iron Lady	The Weinstein Company	$5,386,000	+ 2954%	$5,973,621
11	We Bought a Zoo	Twentieth Century Fox	$5,200,000	- 37%	$63,688,534
12	The Adventures of Tintin	Paramount	$4,000,000	- 41%	$67,705,000
	Also Opening/Notables
	We Need to Talk About Kevin	Oscilloscope	$44,000	New	$83,297
	The Divide	Anchor Bay	$18,000	New	$18,000
	Sing Your Song	S2bn Films	$12,301	New	$12,301
	Pariah	Focus Features	$98,631	- 10%	$371,000
	A Separation	Sony Pictures Classics	$80,026	- 14%	$322,049
	The Darkest Hour	Summit Entertainment	$1,024,000	- 67%	$20,473,174
	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close	WARNER BROS.	$88,000	- 11%	$632,000
	In the Land of Blood and Honey	FilmDistrict	$39,985	+ 24%	$144,930
	Carnage	Wellspring Cinema	$785,590	+ 618%	$1,372,055
	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy	Fox Searchlight	$3,160,945	- 42%	$15,102,721
	New Year's Eve	New Line Cinema	$1,050,000	- 66%	$53,704,000
	The Artist	The Weinstein Company	$1,167,000	+ 4%	$8,763,779
	My Week With Marilyn	The Weinstein Company	$453,000	- 45%	$11,326,710
	The Descendants	Fox Searchlight	$2,035,000	- 21%	$47,039,196
Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations

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