‘Sherlock Holmes’ leads North American box office

LOS ANGELES — A new adventure of Sherlock Holmes and the famous detective’s loyal sidekick Watson landed on top of North American box office charts over the weekend, industry estimates showed Sunday.

The British-American action mystery film directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law grossed $40 million, according to Exhibitor Relations.

“Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” is a sequel to the 2009 film “Sherlock Holmes” about the character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

For its opening weekend, “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” earned a disappointing $23.5 million, still enough to land it in second place. It was the third animated film about the singing chipmunks.

Tom Cruise action feature “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” had a $13 million start, playing in some 425 IMAX and other large-format screen theaters.

Falling to fourth, last week’s winner “New Year’s Eve” earned $7.4 million. The star-studded holiday romance features Michelle Pfeiffer and Zac Efron, with appearances by Robert de Niro and Halle Barry.

That pushed it ahead of adult comedy “The Sitter,” with Jonah Hill starring as a reluctant babysitter. It raked in $4.4 million.

Blockbuster vampire heart-throb flick “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 1,” came in sixth. It rang up $4.3 million in its fifth weekend in theaters, for a total of $266.4 million so far.

Charlize Theron drama “Young Adult,” directed by Jason Reitman earned $3.7 million after expanding its showings from just eight theaters to nearly 1,000 this weekend.

Theron stars as a fiction writer who returns to small town Minnesota after her divorce in hopes to win back the heart of an ex-boyfriend — played by Patrick Wilson — who is now married with children.

Dropping two spots to eighth was Martin Scorsese’s first 3-D film “Hugo.” The adventure drama based on Brian Selznick’s novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” about a boy who lives alone in a Paris railway station $3.6 million.

It came ahead of animated family comedy “Arthur Christmas,” about Santa’s son tasked with completing a mission by Christmas morning. The film pulled in $3.6 million.

Rounding out the top 10 was “The Muppets,” based on Jim Henson’s puppet characters, which grossed $3.5 million for its fourth week in theaters.