Below are the top 12 weekend final numbers from the North American box office:

1. 2012 - $65,237,614
2. A Christmas Carol (2009) - $22,308,913
3. Precious - $5,874,628
4. The Men Who Stare At Goats - $5,861,753
5. Michael Jackson's This Is It - $5,078,920
6. The Fourth Kind - $4,605,365
7. Couples Retreat - $4,164,940
8. Paranormal Activity - $4,043,417
9. Law Abiding Citizen - $3,796,327
10. The Box - $3,158,368
11. Pirate Radio - $2,904,380
12. Where The Wild Things Are - $2,418,140

Overall, the US Box Office was up 22% on last weekend's gross.

Rumbling in to theatres with characteristically cliched aplomb was Roland Emmerich's latest disaster film 2012 which cleaned up with over $65 million in the kitty over the weekend. Following the same disaster formula as Emmerich's previous films, 2012 exceeded expectations but was still not as well as attended as his previous outings. Where it goes to from here is anyone's guess but around $170-$200 million would not be unreasonable, and the film will need overseas box office to earn any profit from its huge $200M budget, a problem Emmerich's films have not had in the past.

Robert Zemeckis' A CHRISTMAS CAROL held very well in its second weekend, and it needed to, earning over $22 million and losing only 26% of its audience on last weekend. This is great news for the animated flick which has now earned $63.2M against its $200M budget and now looks like a safer bet to recoup its expenses.

The surprise of the weekend was the indie flick PRECIOUS which managed to leap in to third spot with $5.8 million, taking its cumulative total to $8.7 million and is now a lock to recoup its $10 million budget. After opening very slowly last weekend, distributor Lionsgate increased the number of venues playing the film and had a great result.

Michael Jackson's THIS IS IT took a tumble this weekend, after Sony allowed it to screen past its promised two week schedule and it sufferred somewhat as a consequence, losing 61% of its audience. The concert film earned a still okay $5 million and has earned a healthy $67 million since opening.

The only other new opener for the weekend is PIRATE RADIO which opened in eleventh place with $2.9 million. Focus Features would have to be hoping a good platform release works as this one cost $50 million.

The Top 12 at the US Box Office took in a total of $130,313,000 for the whole of the weekend 13-15 November 2009.