New Year’s weekend seems to have given the box office a much needed booster shot in the arm when it comes to box office totals.

In an unsuaul turn of events, the vast majority of movies saw larger box office results this weekend over the previous one.  Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol ticked up by 5.9 percent to bring in a very healthy $31.25 million, and thanks to a healthy holiday week, it sits at $134 million total domestic box office.  It’s performing well over seas, but that $145 million budget has to still be like the pink elephant in the room.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows held on to the number two spot with a 9.1 percent gain over last weekend to bring in just over $22 million.  It’s still trailing the original film, but it isn’t looking quite as anemic as it once was as it picked up some ground on it finally.

Surprisingly, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked gained a whopping 45 percent over its previous weekend to bring in $18.25 million.  This puts it at $94.6 million domestic, still a far cry from the $200 million carrier the previous two films broke.  However, the overseas performance seems healthy, so don’t be too shocked if we see another movie in this franchise.

War Horse didn’t get a full weekend last week, so its numbers are a little skewed, but it is out performing just about every prediction with a nice $16.9 million this weekend.

Rounding out the top five was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which jumped 27.8 percent this weekend to bring in $16.3 million. It’s domestic total is now $57.3 million, and its overseas numbers seem fairly weak, so it’s unclear if this will end up being a success or not.

As I suspected, the list didn’t change much this week, and with the smallish The Devil Inside horror film being the only “major” release next week, don’t be too surprised if this list remains pretty unchanged once more.

It appears that moviegoers were quite anxious to get out to the theaters as the four day numbers saw some films shift position and others jump a significant amount.

Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol saw a huge Monday, bringing its weekend total for the four days from the $26.5 million we saw to a whopping $46.2 million total.  It’s still trailing as the slowest film in the series, but seeing as the other three all released in May going into the summer film season, this isn’t too surprising.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows jumped up by $14 million to $31.8 million, and still puts it well behind the original, but is finally getting it out of the area of “total disaster.”

Third place went to Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked which brought in another $7 million on Monday bringing its four day total to $20 million. Still not enough to help this film get totally out of the basement, it has next to no hope now of breaking $200 million like the first two in the series did.

Speaking of films that won’t break $200 million, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo moved up to $19.4 million with Monday in the mix, and it is now pretty much doomed to failure.  With a $90 million budget it would need to hit $180 million domestic to be considered profitable, and there is just no way it’s going to do that.  The film may do better internationally, but the costs of foreign distribution are much higher.  Things don’t look too good here as of yet.

Considering how unknown Tin Tin is in the United States, the fact The Adventures of Tin Tin brought in $16 million for the four day weekend is pretty impressive.

Other new films out this weekend saw We Bought a Zoo came in sixth with $15.6 million. Possibly the most impressive debut this weekend was Spielberg’s other film, War Horse, which opened on Christmas Day and brought in just over $15 million in two days. Not too bad and it will be interesting to see how it does in the coming days. The Darkest Hour, a new horror movie, opened up with $5.5 million, because, you know, it’s always wise to open a horror film at Christmas time.

The holiday weekend wasn’t good to the box office, but that seems to go with the flow for this year for movies.

Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol finally hit wide release this weekend, and brought in a healthy $26.5 million, but more than likely was a lower number than the studio was looking for.  It’s domestic total stands at $58.9 million off of a $145 million budget, so it’ll be interesting to see how this one ends up doing.

Coming in second was Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows with $17.8 million, a 55 percent fall from last weekend, and leaves the film well behind the original at the same point in release. Yes, it’s at a little over $76 million now, but the first film was at a $138 million. It looks like people were definitely not that ready for a second adventure of the famous detective with an updated take.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked held on fairly well with a 44 percent drop, and while it’s still trailing the first two films, that’s a respectable hold for the third movie in the series. It brought in $13.3 million, which is about $13 million more than I think it should have brought in.

Coming in fourth was the second adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with $13 million. It opened early in the week and has brought in a total of $21.4 million, but seeing as it had a $90 million budget, things aren’t looking good for this movie to make its money back.

Rounding out the top five was The Adventures of Tin Tin with an even $13 million, bringing its domestic total to $17.1 million, but this is in addition to the $239.1 million its brought in worldwide since it was released two months ago. This isn’t surprising as Tin Tin is not that well-known character in the United States.

This closes out the big releases for 2011 in the United States, so I wouldn’t expect things to change much next weekend.

Once again the box office failed to live up to expectations this weekend, leading to what could be one of the worst Decembers in some time.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows opened to only about two-thirds of the original’s opening weekend two years ago.  It barely broke the $40 million dollar mark compared to the original bringing in $62.3 million.  While it isn’t the worst opening in history, but it is sure to have not thrilled Warner Brothers executives.

The other sequel to see a wide release this weekend was Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, and it also had the worst opening for the series yet.  It came in with $23.5 million, well below the second film’s $48.9 million or the original’s $44.3 million.  The first two films brought in over $200 million each domestically, but it looks highly unlikely the third will follow that success, and with a $75 million dollar budget, there are sure to be some studio executives at 20th Century Fox sweating at the moment.

Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol only opened up in 425 locations this weekend, and it still came in third place with $13 million.  It goes wide next weekend with an additional 3,400 screens, so expect it to do well.

Coming in fourth was New Year’s Eve with a slip of 43 percent, down to $7.4 million.  The percentage wasn’t horrible, so this film may have a little life in it, but not a ton.

Rounding out the top five was The Sitter with a 55 percent hit to its total bringing in a meager $4.4 million. As I said last week, I just don’t think the world is ready for Jonah Hill as the lead in a comedy.

Next weekend sees the release of The Adventures of Tin Tin which will probably do so-so domestically as he is not a widely known character, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

As weekends go, this one definitely did not set the box office ablaze, and when the the final numbers come in, it may rate as the worst since 2008.  All told, the top 12 films brought in an anemic $69.7 million.

First up was the new ensemble romantic comedy New Year’s Eve that took the top spot at the box office with a paltry $13.7 million, a whopping 75% less than the similarly themed Valentine’s Day from last February.  This was well below even the lowest expectations for the film, and perhaps it will sustain itself through the holiday it’s named for, but this opening certainly isn’t going to leave to many executives happy this morning.

Coming in second was the Jonah Hill comedy The Sitter with $10 million.  This is the first comedy with Hill in the lead, and it’s pretty obvious that the film going audience wasn’t that thrilled with the concept.  I’d say color me surprised, but I’m not.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 fell to third this week with $7.9 million, bringing its domestic take to $259.5 million off of a $110 million budget. Worldwide it has broken $633.5 million. It may be annoying to see one book broken into two parts, but between this and the final two Harry Potter films, it seems that the concept sadly works.

Coming in fourth was The Muppets with just a breath of $7 million which brings its domestic total to $65.8 million. With a $45 million dollar budget this film has yet to break even and looks unlikely to do so, sadly.

Rounding out the top five was Arthur Christmas with $6.6 million.

Due next week is Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and a limited release of Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is set for release December 16, 2011, and seeing as only one trailer had been released so far, it definitely was time a second one.

Where the first trailer back in July seemed to be more about focusing on the action aspects of the film, this one seems to be much more centered around the concept that Holmes will be going up against his most well-known enemy, Professor Moriarty.  Beyond that, it definitely looks like Robert Downey Jr. is again playing Holmes as someone walking a very thin line between brilliance and complete psychosis … and it totally works.

Although I’d love to hear why Guy Ritchie went so nuts with the slow motion of exploding trees …

It’s time for trailers to come spilling out, and there have been two big ones this week, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows & John Carter.

First up is the second film in the re-imagined world of Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role and Guy Ritchie directing. The first film was fantastic and exciting, and it looks like more of the same in the second one. The addition of Noomi Rapace (European version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series) to the film is sure not to hurt either.

Here is the official synopsis of the film that releases Dec. 16th, 2011.

Sherlock Holmes has always been the smartest man in the room… until now. There is a new criminal mastermind at large—Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris)—and not only is he Holmes’ intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil, coupled with a complete lack of conscience, may actually give him an advantage over the renowned detective.

When the Crown Prince of Austria is found dead, the evidence, as construed by Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan), points to suicide. But Sherlock Holmes deduces that the prince has been the victim of murder—a murder that is only one piece of a larger and much more portentous puzzle, designed by one Professor Moriarty.

Mixing business with pleasure, Holmes tracks the clues to an underground gentlemen’s club, where he and his brother, Mycroft Holmes (Stephen Fry) are toasting Dr. Watson on his last night of bachelorhood. It is there that Holmes encounters Sim (Noomi Rapace), a Gypsy fortune teller, who sees more than she is telling and whose unwitting involvement in the prince’s murder makes her the killer’s next target. Holmes barely manages to save her life and, in return, she reluctantly agrees to help him.

Something about the look and feel of this trailer just feels “off” to me, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

The investigation becomes ever more dangerous as it leads Holmes, Watson and Sim across the continent, from England to France to Germany and finally to Switzerland. But the cunning Moriarty is always one step ahead as he spins a web of death and destruction—all part of a greater plan that, if he succeeds, will change the course of history.

The second big trailer this week is for John Carter. Based on the classic series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, this film covers the first book in the 11 novel series, A Princess of Mars. Why they didn’t include that in the title is puzzling to me as “John Carter” by itself is not a name that screams “sci-fi epic.” Obviously Disney wants to turn this into a series, but we’ll have to see how this first one does at the box office.