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

1. Avatar - $77,025,481
2. The Princess And The Frog - $12,185,949
3. The Blind Side - $10,021,280
4. Did You Hear About The Morgans? - $6,616,571
5. The Twilight Saga: New Moon - $4,407,598
6. Invictus - $4,203,171
7. A Christmas Carol (2009) - $3,443,464
8. Up In The Air - $3,210,132
9. Brothers - $2,889,121
10. Old Dogs - $2,340,575
11. 2012 - $2,204,588
12. Armored - $1,284,591

Overall, the US Box Office was up 48.7% on last weekend's gross.

The film that has been touted to be the game-changer of cinema as we know it rolled in to theatres with an excellent, if not record breaking performance. James Cameron's AVATAR earned a fantastic $77 million over the weekend. Praised for its technical wizardry and Cameron's sure-fire filmmaking abilities (if not its generic storyline), the film got the start it needed, particularly with its hefty price tag rumoured to be in excess of $300 million with advertising included. The film earned a further $164.5 million in overseas gross, taking its worldwide total to $241.5 million. The film may have been costly but it will turn a profit.

The only other film to open this weekend, and failed miserably, was the Hugh Grant / Sarah Jessica Parker rom-com DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS? which stumbled out of the gate with a paltry $6.6 million. Reviews were very unkind, and it would appear the film is coasting solely on the power of its stars. Given the huge $58 million budget, we are looking at a turkey here.

Returning films THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG and THE BLIND SIDE had decent weekends, earning $12.1 million and $10 million respectively. The former film's old school animation techniques are almost ironic given AVATAR's release, but it has still hung on but will need to work to recoup its $105 million budget; it's cumulative total is $44 million so far. The latter on the other hand is still cruising on the box office performance of its first three weekends. THE BLIND SIDE is now sitting with $164.7 million against a $29 million budget.

The Top 12 at the US Box Office took in a total of $129,832,521 for the whole of the weekend 18-20 December 2009.