Bond is back: 'Skyfall' makes a rare return to number one after three-week hiatus

Just like in Skyfall, Bond is back. After debuting in first place, Skyfall spent three weeks playing second fiddle to The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 2. Now that steeply declining franchise finale has dropped to third with $9.2 million. Skyfall, declining just 33% from last week, rose to first place with $11 million. That gives the Daniel Craig-led movie a total of $256
million in the U.S., plus another $656 million abroad for a total of $918 million. At this point, I bet Sony's counting its pennies and trying to see if it can top the $1 billion mark. The ten-figure mark aside, the movie is close to being the studio's most successful in five years. For a franchise release that was delayed for so many years thanks to MGM's bankruptcy, this is the best possible outcome. Maybe Hollywood can learn a lesson that spacing apart franchise titles and putting together a quality script can lead to a huge payoff.

After a poor debut and a 43% drop in its second weekend, Rise of the Guardians leveled its fall with a 20% slide to $10.5 million. The DreamWorks Animation title has been something of a disappointment, but the holiday-themed tale may be able to hold onto an audience through
Christmas. In two weeks, it will have the 3D re-release of Monsters Inc. to contend with, but that's about it in the family entertainment department.

Playing for Keeps, the only new wide release of the week, did just about as poorly as expected, debuting with a total of $6 million. Gerard Butler's career is now in critical mode, since he also appeared in the surfing flop Chasing Mavericks. He's already filmed his next role, in 2013's Olympus Has Fallen, so he really needs that movie to be a success to help revive his career.

End of Watch had a moderately successful re-expansion into over 1,000 theatres. The goal was to break $1 million, but the cop procedural finished with $733,000. Still, considering last week the movie earned just $22,000, the increase in theatre count added a nice chunk to the total.

Hyde Park on Hudson debuted to a $20,000 per-screen average in four locations in New
York and Los Angeles. With many awards-leaning pictures opening in the $50,000 to $70,000 per-screen range, that's not good. It looks like the story of a romance between FDR and his cousin will be passed over both by critics and by audiences.

Ed Burns' Fitzgerald Family Christmas put in a $3,400 per-screen average in four locations. Burns' Irish Catholic stories have a following, but it's unclear if they all showed up opening weekend or if the opening is a launching point to nice holiday run.

This Friday, one of the most anticipated movies of the year comes out. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will release in over 4,000 locations, with many theatres showing it in 3D and select locations previewing director Peter Jackson's high-frame-rate version.

'Playing for Keeps' isn't vying for a spot in the top five

We're into the second week of post-Thanksgiving coasting. The release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey next Friday has had something of a chilling effect. Any studio that wants a movie to play strongly for a couple of weeks in a row opted out of this weekend. The only new wide release is Playing for Keeps (2,837 theatres). Currently tracking at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes,
things do not look good for the Gerard Butler-led romantic comedy. It's more of the same-old, the story of a retired pro soccer player who coaches his son's team, gets with all the soccer moms, and then pursues his ex-wife. FilmDistrict may hope the movie will approach $10 million, but somewhere in the $5 million range will be more likely.

Seeing a gap in the marketplace, Open Road will re-expand the release of End of Watch, which received good reviews when it first opened eleven weekends ago. While playing in 1,249 locations, it should rack up at least a million and cross the $40 million mark.

The top five films will all be close together, with receipts right in the $10 million range. Skyfall has been playing ahead of Lincoln in the weekday box offices, so there's a good chance it will maintain its lead through the weekend. Rise of the Guardians may lift a bit to approach the two leading films thanks to families attending weekend matinees. Life of Pi will also be in the mix and settle somewhere in the $10 million range. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 2 will likely finally give up its lead as its steep week-to-week drops bring it below Skyfall and Lincoln, which
have descended on a slower slope.

One notable specialty release will join the awards-seeking fray, Hyde Park on Hudson, which will open in four locations. The story of the relationship between FDR (Bill Murray) and his cousin (Laura Linney) "feels creepy instead of
romantic," notes critic Daniel Eagan. "As portrayed by Linney, she's a naive, poverty-stricken
girl seduced into an affair with an abusive, serial philanderer." This is the second film to feature an actor playing King Edward, who stuttered, and The King's Speech is many times better. This is one audiences can skip in favor of the many far better similar options out there right now, including Silver Linings Playbook (better romance, better comedy), Lincoln (better historical picture), and The Sessions (better relationship between two people where one is disabled).

On Monday, we'll see which of the returning releases had the most steam, if Playing for Keeps managed to score with audiences at all, and if End of Watch's expansion strategy worked.