It's Mission Accomplished for "Mission: Impossible."
The Tom Cruise action movie ruled the multiplex throughout the holiday weekend -- and helped boost overall box office numbers to 8 percent above the same four-day period last year.
"M:I:4" is looking at $46.2 million for the four-day weekend.
Christmas Day was especially strong. On Sunday alone, "Mission: Impossible" grossed an estimated $13.6 million, No. 2 "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" grossed $9.6 million, No. 3 "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" grossed $4.5 million and No. 4 "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" grossed $5.6 million.
The strong Christmas weekend was welcome, particularly after a miserable few weeks at the box office.
Several high-budget, high-profile movies debuted in the days leading up to Christmas.
Among them: Sony's "Dragon Tattoo," a two-hour 40-minute hard-R film that opened Tuesday evening and missed expectations for the four days, and Steven Spielberg's PG-rated motion-capture animation "The Adventures of Tintin." That movie opened Wednesday and is in fifth place for the long weekend.
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Most of the numbers matched expectations for Christmas Day, but there was a surprise: Steven Spielberg's PG-13 World War I epic "War Horse" opened to a particularly robust $7.5 million on Sunday. The DreamWorks picture is expected to gross another $7.5 million on Monday.
Considering that Disney, which distributes for DreamWorks, figured the movie would pull in $6 million over both days, the number is especially impressive.
Sunday's other new movie, Summit/New Regency's PG-13 sci-fi thriller "The Darkest Hour," opened to $3 million -- in line with studio projections. That movie, which the audience polling company Cinemascore gave a harsh "C-plus" grade, is expected to gross $5.5 million through Monday.
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And opening in limited release, Warner Bros.' "Extremely Loud an Incredibly Close" debuted at six locations in three cities Sunday, grossing $71,861 -- a per-location average of about $12,000.
With no new major movies opening Friday, Hollywood expects this weekend's solid numbers to grow larger.
"There's a lot of good cheer going on around the industry -- at least for this weekend," Rory Bruer, Sony's distribution chief, told TheWrap Monday morning. "Certainly, leading up to it hasn't been that great, but it feels very good right now."
His studio's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" -- one of the most anticipated movies of the year -- was in fourth place for the four day period, taking in $12.75 million over three days and $19.4 million over four. That's just below expectations.
The movie, directed by David Fincher and starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, has grossed a total of $27.7 million and had a budget estimated at about $100 million.
