The box office earned only a little more than last Friday but rather than the usual hum-drum repeat of returning films, the box office was lead by a strong opening blockbuster.

Opening strongly out of the blocks is Keanu Reeves' THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL which took in an impressive 11.6 million on Friday. This is a solid start and should lead in to a great opening weekend for the sci-fi remake.

The only other new opener on Friday was NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS which earned an estimed 1.17 million.

The remaining films in the top 10 earned as follows:

FOUR CHRISTMASES - 4.2M
TWILIGHT - 2.5M
BOLT - 1.7M
AUSTRALIA - 1.2M
QUANTUM OF SOLACE - 1.1M
MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA - 0.7M
MILK - 0.7M
TRANSPORTER 3 - 0.6M

The North American box office in total took in 25.7 million for the whole of Friday 12th December 2008.