After a fairly precipitous fall last weekend, the box office surged ahead on Friday, more than doubling the previous Friday's haul.

Leading the charge is the Paramount/Dreamworks' new animated offerring, MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA. The film took in an estimated 17.4 million on Friday, easily taking the top spot. Look for an impressive opening weekend here.

Second spot goes to ROLE MODELS which took in an estimated 6.6 million on Friday.The comedy had a decent start and should end up with a good first weekend.

The only other new opener this Friday was SOUL MEN which took in an estimated 1.8 million to land in sixth spot. Hardly impressive for a film starring Samuel L. Jackson, we'll have to wait and see how this goes.

The remainder of the Top 10 ran as repeat of last Friday:

3) HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: SENIOR YEAR - 2.5M
4) ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO - 2.2M
5) CHANGELING - 2.1M
7) SAW V - 1.3M
8) THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY - 1.1M
9) THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES - 0.9M
10) EAGLE EYE - 0.7M

The North American box office in total took in 36.9 million for the whole of Friday 7th November 2008.