Surprise: 'New Moon' is 'Blind Side-d' by Bullock on Thanksgiving

In an unexpected twist to the holiday box office derby, "The Blind Side" snuck past "New Moon" on Thanksgiving. Additionally, "The Princess in the Frog" did magical numbers in limited release.

Gregory Ellwood In an unexpected twist to the holiday box office derby, Sandra Bullock's word of mouth hit "The Blind Side" snuck past expected champ "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" on Thanksgiving.  "Blind Side" found $9.5 million while "New Moon" had it's lowest outing to date with $9.2 million. It's unclear whether this is a momentary blip in "New Moon's" stellar box office run or if the massive fan base has finally had their share of the Edward, Jacob and Bella romantic triangle.  Friday's gross should tell the tale, but at the moment "New Moon" has a new domestic cume of $188.4 million and is about to eclipse "Twilight's" $192 million total. "Blind Side" continues to show the naysayers that Warner Bros. wasn't making a mistake when it programmed another heavily female skewing movie against "New Moon."  To date, the football drama had made $60.1 million and it wouldn't be surprising for the flick to match Bullock's summer hit "The Proposal" with around $150-160 million when all is said and done. In third place, "Ninja Assassin" saw a slight uptick on Thursday with $4.3 million for a new cume of $7.9 million.  By the end of the holiday weekend "Ninja" should have grossed around $20 million.  The fourth slot went to Disney's "Old Dogs" which also saw a slight increase to $4.1 million.  It's new cume is $7.2 million and it should also finish the weekend in the $18-20 million range.  Considering the lack of comedies in the market place that has to be pretty disappointing for the Mouse House. "2012" continued its slide to fifth as it found $4.0 million ad a new total of $120 million. "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire" may have finally slowed down as well.  The critically acclaimed drama made $1.29 million in only 663 theaters for a new total of $24.3 million.  That's sill fairly impressive, but doesn't match the stunning per screen it found throughout most of the month.  It will be curious to see how Lionsgate decides to expand the picture (or not) at this point of the awards season. Among other openers, "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" saw little improvement on Thanksgiving as it raised just another $1.35 million on 2,000 screens.  It does not appear the Wes Anderson stop motion animated flick is playing beyond the art house circuit.  It's new cume is a less than fantastic $3 million. The Weinstein company saw good, but not spectacular results for "The Road."  The adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's acclaimed novel found $481,000 over the past two days on 111 screens. No word on when or if the picture will expand nationwide. Not surprisingly, the most impressive debut of the holiday so far is Disney's "The Princess and the Frog."  Screening in just two venues, the New York's Ziegfeld and  the recently upgraded Main Theater on the Disney Lot in Burbank, the studio's return to hand drawn animation had conjured up $430,770 over the past two days for a stellar $215, 385 per screen.  "Frog" opens nationwide on Dec. 11. Look for box office updates throughout the weekend on HitFix. 32719786001 movies

2009-11-27T18:58:37Z

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Football flick finds $9.5 million as 'Moon' falls to $9.2 million

2038-01-01T00:00:00Z

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2009-11-27-surprise-new-moon-is-blind-side-d-by-bullock-on-thanksgiving

2009-11-27T14:10:00Z

'New Moon' is 'Blind Side-d' by Sandra Bullock on Thanksgiving

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Eastern Time (US & Canada)

http://tinyurl.com/yg2hzx6

Surprise: 'New Moon' is 'Blind Side-d' by Bullock on Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T19:22:54Z

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