‘Mission: Impossible’ leads improbable comeback at box office; ‘Sherlock Holmes’ scores, too

Pass the Champagne: Hollywood is toasting a reversal of fortunes at the box office over the four-day holiday weekend.
Tom Cruise and the "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" helped complete their most impressive stunt, leading a movie industry that had been lamenting 2011's overall drop of audiences to lows not seen since the '90s to a rebound.

The box office haul over New Year's weekend was 10% higher than over the same period in 2010, according to Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com.

"It provided a silver lining in all this doom and gloom for the industry in 2011," says Dergarabedian. "It gives me hope that 2012 can be the big box office year we are hoping for."

"Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" earned $38.3 million from Friday through Monday, already surprassing "Mission: Impossible 3's" totals with a $141 million domestic haul and no end to its momentum in sight. So much for all that talk of how streaming video and flat-screen TVs were going to kill the movie theater.

"If you can give the audience something that's visually spectacular, a reason to come out and watch movies in the theater, then audiences will come out to see it on the big screen," says Rob Moore, Paramount's vice chairman of marketing.

"The challenge is making exciting movies that are good enough to pull fans away from their video game consoles."

Warner Brothers' "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" finished a strong No. 2 for a second straight week with $26.5 million, raising its total domestic haul to $136.5 million, with the clues pointing to the great detective's sequel having a shot at nearing the original's $209 million mark.

Fox's "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" docked in the third spot with $21 million, while Disney's "War Horse" completed a superfecta for the industry with $19.2 million.

Even David Fincher's "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," which had been left for dead after a disappointing debut last weekend given all of the hype surrounding the adaptation, has very quietly notched respectable numbers over the week.

"That movie is up to $60 million through today, and to me that's a pretty good showing," says Dergarabedian. "For an R-rated movie that's is so very intense — this is not 'Polyanna' — I don't know what people were expecting. I think expectations were just overblown because of the popularity of the books."

Industry insiders are hoping the upward shift in momentum will continue in 2012, with a big slate of movies that includes "The Hunger Games," "The Avengers," and "The Dark Knight Rises."