‘New Year’s Eve’ leads slow box office sales

LOS ANGELES—Holiday romance “New Year’s Eve” led North American box office charts over the weekend, although sales were sluggish, industry estimates showed Sunday.

The star-studded romantic comedy featuring Michelle Pfeiffer and Zac Efron, with appearances by Robert de Niro and Halle Barry, scored $13.7 million for its opening weekend, according to Exhibitor Relations.

That pushed it ahead of adult comedy “The Sitter,” with Jonah Hill starring as a reluctant babysitter. Also showing in theaters for the first time this week, it raked in $10 million.

Blockbuster vampire heart-throb flick “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 1,” came in third after three weeks at the top of box office. It rang up $7.9 million, pushing it past the quarter-billion-dollar mark for a total of $259.5 million so far.

That put the teen vampire sequel ahead of “The Muppets,” the new film based on Jim Henson’s puppet characters, which grossed $7.1 million for its third week in theaters.

In fifth place was animated family comedy “Arthur Christmas,” about Santa’s son tasked with completing a mission by Christmas morning. It pulled in $6.6 million.

Martin Scorsese’s first 3-D film “Hugo” came in sixth place. 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 raked in $6.1 million.

In seventh was George Clooney comedy-drama “The Descendants,” with $4.4 million, enough to push it ahead of penguin tale “Happy Feet Two,” which got $3.8 million.

Adam Sandler’s “Jack and Jill” comedy, in which he plays both a successful Los Angeles advertising executive and his needy twin sister, came in ninth. It got $3.2 million.

Big-budget 3-D epic “Immortals” rounded out the top 10, with $2.4 million.