Friday saw a 99.6% increase in box office revenue over the previous Friday.

1. Sherlock Holmes - $24.8M
2. Avatar - $23.5M
3. Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel - $14.5M
4. It's Complicated - $7M
5. Up In The Air - $3.55M
6. The Blind Side - $3.37M
7. Nine - $1.99M
8. The Princess And The Frog - $1.95M
9. Did You Hear About The Morgans? - $1.5M
10. Invictus - $1.3M

Christmas Day has fallen on a Friday this year which saw a massive spike in cinematic attendance by a public wishing to take advantage of this rare event occurring on the holiday. Sure, some people had a more traditional Christmas, but judging by the numbers, a lot of people visited the cineplexes instead.

Opening strongly in first place is SHERLOCK HOLMES, the latest film from director Guy Ritchie and starring Robert Downey Jr. The film managed to put away an estimate of $24.8 million. This is an excellent start for a film that was a little hard to predict, and reception to the film, although not great, is at least decent enough to ensure it will get some good business over the holiday period.

Second place goes to the strong performing AVATAR, which raked in an estimated $23.5 million on its second Friday. The film has been doing stellar business all week and is currently sitting with $160.7 million since last Friday.

Sadly, or perhaps happily, ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL got lost somewhat in the shuffle. The film opened in third with an estimated $14.5 million, which is not too bad, and will likely score a solid weekend number.

The Meryl Streep-Alec Baldwin-Steve Martin rom-com IT'S COMPLICATED debuted in fourth place with a decent estimate of $7 million. The film was the only real alternative for women this Friday, and this is not too bad a result.

Stay tuned for a more comprehensive wrap-up of the weekend box office in North America for 25th-27th December 2009.

The Top 10 at the North American box office took in an estimated total of $83.6 million for the whole of Friday 25th December 2009.