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The Adventures of Tintin is eighth, and is very thankful for overseas grosses. After earning $11.4 million last weekend, Tintin dropped hard this weekend, earning only $6.6 million and losing 42% of last weekend's audience. With the $135 million budget, and a domestic gross so far of $61.9 million, Tintin would be in serious trouble. However, it earned more than $260 million overseas, so it will end up as another large success for the folks at Paramount (though they are having to split that international revenue since they co-distributed with Columbia).

Ninth spot goes to Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, which expanded from 57 venues last weekend to 809 venues this weekend. The expansion moved it from a $1.1 million earner last weekend to a $5.8 million earner this weekend (an increase of 431%). Released by Focus Features and carrying a budget of only $21 million, this one is going to end up as a big winner for Focus, as it has some domestic momentum, and has already picked up $25 million overseas. The domestic total currently sits at $10.4 million.

Finally in tenth is New Year's Eve, which held on to a top spot even though it is now effectively irrelevant since the holidays are over. It earned another $3.2 million, dropping a large 48% in the process. Its grand total now sits at $52 million, and has to be a bit of a disappointment even if it did technically beat its budget.

Overall this weekend, the box office had a good start for 2012, thanks to one bad movie. The top 12 films earned $128.3 million this weekend, well ahead of the $98.6 million total from the first weekend in 2011. Next weekend brings some new and old product. In the old department, we have the return of Dolly Parton in Joyful Noise and Beauty and the Beast in 3D. On the new side, we have Mark Wahlberg in Contraband. It all looks like filler to me, but then again, The Devil Inside dominated this weekend. Who knows what can happen?

Top Weekend Box Office for 1/6/12-1/8/12 (Estimates)
Rank	Film	Distributor	Estimated Gross	Weekly Change	Running Total
1	The Devil Inside	Paramount Pictures	$34,500,000	New	$34,500,000
2	Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol	Paramount	$20,500,000	- 30%	$170,201,000
3	Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	Warner Bros.	$14,055,000	- 33%	$157,415,000
4	The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo	SONY	$11,400,000	- 23%	$76,836,000
5	Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked	Twentieth Century Fox	$9,500,000	- 42%	$111,588,454
6	War Horse	Walt Disney Pictures	$8,603,000	- 40%	$56,828,000
7	We Bought a Zoo	Twentieth Century Fox	$8,450,000	- 36%	$56,544,109
8	The Adventures of Tintin	Paramount	$6,600,000	- 42%	$61,880,000
9	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy	Fox Searchlight	$5,767,288	+431%	$10,418,437
10	New Year's Eve	New Line Cinema	$3,265,000	- 48%	$52,026,000
11	The Darkest Hour	Summit Entertainment	$3,140,000	- 25%	$18,706,289
12	The Descendants	Fox Searchlight	$2,565,000	- 24%	$43,941,563
	Also Opening/Notables
	The Iron Lady	The Weinstein Company	$172,100	- 22%	$516,395
	A Separation	Sony Pictures Classics	$96,618	+ 62%	$202,026
	Pariah	Focus Features	$111,573	+130%	$235,014
	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close	WARNER BROS.	$96,000	- 13%	$496,000
	In the Land of Blood and Honey	FilmDistrict	$31,812	+236%	$90,204
	Carnage	Wellspring Cinema	$115,834	+ 24%	$537,021
	Young Adult	Paramount	$1,300,000	- 38%	$14,767,000
	Shame	Fox Searchlight	$210,000	+ 5%	$2,366,610
	Hugo	Paramount	$1,550,000	- 37%	$52,580,000
	The Muppets	Walt Disney Pictures	$1,203,000	- 55%	$85,405,000
	The Artist	The Weinstein Company	$1,136,000	- 13%	$7,113,501
	My Week With Marilyn	The Weinstein Company	$823,000	- 11%	$10,454,013
	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Pt. 1	SUMMIT	$1,500,000	- 27%	$278,443,638
Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations

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