All eyes were on TRON: Legacy this weekend to see how it would do in its first three days in US cinemas. While some had expected a $50+ million opening, in the end it came in with a strong but not astounding $43.6 million. Although that may have some at Disney wondering whether their $200 million investment was worth it, it’ll probably pay off, as the film should stay strong over the holidays, and is likely to gross more outside that US than it does inside.
Yogi Bear meanwhile was a disappointment. Nearly everyone had expected it to pull in more than $20 million on its opening, but it only made $16.7 million. While it too can expect decent holiday audiences, it’s undoubtedly started off worse than the studio had hoped.
James L. Brook’s How Do You Know pretty much tanked. The rom-com, which anaylysts say ending up costing more that $120 million to make (yep, $120 million for a rom-com, mainly due to Brook’s meticulous process, which involved reshooting large chunks of the movie), took only $7.6 million on its opening. And with little prospect of the Oscar nominations that have turned other Brooks movies into hits, Sony’s likely to be taking a large write down on this one.
Although not a new movie as it’s been playing in a limited number of theatres, The Fighter expanded massively (adding 2,500 theatres to its count) to make its first appearance in the top 10, adding $12 million to its tally and taking fourth place on its chart. Black Swan also continued to impress as it added to its theatre count, taking $8.3 million, despite still playing on less than 1,000 screens.
Take a look below for the US box office top 10 for the weekend of December 17th-19th.
| Rank | Title | Weekend Gross (millions) | Total Gross to date (millions) |
| 1 | Tron Legacy | $43.6 | $43.6 |
| 2 | Yogi Bear | $16.7 | $16.7 |
| 3 | The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader | $12.4 | $42.7 |
| 4 | The Fighter | $12.2 | $12.6 |
| 5 | The Tourist | $8.7 | $30.7 |
| 6 | Tangled | $8.6 | $127.8 |
| 7 | Black Swan | $8.3 | $15.7 |
| 8 | How Do You Know | $7.6 | $7.6 |
| 9 | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 | $4.8 | $265.5 |
| 10 | Unstoppable | $1.8 | $77.3 |