Weekend Box Office: December 17-19

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo: 

1.  Tron Legacy - $43.6 million

2.  Yogi Bear - $16.7 million

3.  The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader - $12.4 million

4.  The Fighter - $12.2 million

5.  The Tourist - $8.7 million

6.  Tangled - $8.6 million

7.  Black Swan - $8.3 million

8.  How Do You Know - $7.6 million

9.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 - $4.8 million

10.  Unstoppable - $1.8 million

Well, they weren't Avatar numbers, but considering the 28-year gap between movies, Tron Legacy did pretty well this weekend, opening with $43.6 million.  The 3D/IMAX screens certainly helped, accounting for 82% of the opening weekend take, and it should continue to do decent business through the upcoming holiday week. 

Yogi Bear, you are no Alvin and the Chipmunks.  Opening in second place with $16.7 million, which does put it ahead the openings of this summer's CGI flops Marmaduke and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, the return of Yogi and Boo-Boo still wasn't all that impressive this weekend.  But it could also just mean that the family crowd is waiting until the kids are off next week to head to the movies too, although we could still hold out hope that even parents have had enough of these silly movies.

This weekend other new release, James Brooks' How Do You Know, was a total disaster this weekend, landing all the way down in seventh place with just $7.6 million.  Blame some barely noticeable advertising for this one. 

The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader dropped 48% from last week's opening, which isn't awful, but its meager $42.7 domestic total is pretty terrible, and doesn't bode well for the rest of the series.  It's doing much better overseas, where it's grossed $123.6 million. 

This weekend also saw wider releases for two of the big Oscar hopefuls:  Black Swan appears to confusing the masses as all good Darren Aronofsky films do, but is still doing well, landing in seventh place with $8.3 million, while the The Fighter opened in fourth place with $12.2 million.

Next week's big Christmas weekend brings the openings of Little Fockers and the remake of True Grit, as well as the limited release of Country Strong.  Should be a busy weekend.