It was the good, the not great ... and the ugly at the domestic box office.
We'll start with the not great.
With the overall North American market down around 45 percent from the same "Avatar"-led weekend last year, Universal comedy-franchise installment "Little Fockers" led the box office, grossing $48.3 million from Wednesday through Sunday and $34 million from Friday to Sunday, according to studio estimates.
The Ben Stiller/Robert DeNiro franchise undershot tracking by more than $10 million, with pre-release expectations coming in at around $60 million. With Christmas Day grosses spiking to $14.6 million from $5.1 million on Friday, however, Universal officials are hopeful for solid play going forward, with moviegoers' Christmas-week distractions out of the way.
"We're optimistic that the jump from Christmas Eve to Christmas is a good indicator of how the coming week will play out," said Universal marketing president Eddie Egan.
Facing a much uglier reality, Fox saw its Jack Black-led comedy "Gulliver's Travels" debut to only $7.2 million after debuting at 2,546 theaters Saturday.
The two-day gross was right around exceedingly dour expectations for the $115 million film, which came into the weekend with some Lilliputian-sized tracking numbers.
The good news, meanwhile, came out of Paramount, where Coen Bros. Western "True Grit" grossed $36.8 million over its first five days, and $25.6 million over the three-day weekend, besting tracking by about $10 million.
It was the biggest start ever for a Coen Bros. movie, besting the $19.1 million premiere in 2008 for "Burn After Reading."
Here's how the top 10 at the box office shaped up over the three-day weekend:
"Little Fockers" ($34.0m)
"True Grit" ($25.6m)
"Tron" ($20.1m)
"Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader" ($10.8m)
"Yogi Bear" ($8.8m)
"The Fighter" ($8.5m)
"Gulliver's Travels" ($7.2m)
"Tangled" ($6.5m)
"Black Swan" ($6.6m)
"The Tourist" ($5.7m)
Finishing third in its second weekend of domestic release, Disney's "Tron Legacy" grossed $20.1 million over the three-day weekend -- a week-to-week decline of about 50 percent -- bringing its domestic total to $88.3 million. The film cost Disney about $170 million to produce.
"Tron" continued to have a particularly strong run in IMAX theaters, grossing another 6.3 million playing at 301 chain locations globally this weekend. It's grossed $26 million worldwide at IMAX so far.
Disney also saw its 3D-animated "Tangled" continue to hold strong after five weeks in theaters, grossing an estimated $6.5 million over the three-day weekend period and bringing its domestic total to nearly $144 million.
Fox, meanwhile, received good news from the weekend No. 3 performance of "The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader," which grossed $10.8 million -- an impressive 4 percent week-to-week drop -- upping its cumulative domestic gross to nearly $64 million.
In terms of adult dramas, Paramount's "The Fighter" dropped less than 30 percent in its second weekend of wide expansion to $8.5
