Weekend Box Office

1) The Day the Earth Stood Still $31 million

2) Four Christmases $13.2 million

3) Twilight $8 million

4) Bolt $7.5 million

5) Australia $4.2 million

6) Quantum of Solace $ $3.8 million

7) Nothing Like the Holidays $3.5 million

8) Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa $3.2 million

9) Milk $2.6 million

10) Transporter 3 $2.2 million

Scott Derrickson's remake of the seminal 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still dominated the pre-holiday weekend box office with $31 million for first place. Despite bad reviews, the Keanu Reeves alien invasion flick still drove interested audiences to the theater. The only other new comer this weekend was the family drama Nothing Like the Holidays, which dropped in at number seven with a take of $3.5 million.

Four Christmases managed to stay strong in second place, taking in another $13.2 million. The Reese Witherspoon/Vince Vaughn Christmas comedy is fast becoming the surprise hit of the winter, with $87 million in grosses over the course of the last three weeks. Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic simply titled Milk added 229 theaters this week, which enabled it to crack the top ten with $2.6 million in ninth place.

The film with the highest per screen average this weekend was Clint Eastwood's drama Gran Torino. It opened on six screens for a total take of $284,000. That means it earned $47,333 at each location. If given the 3,560 screens had by The Day the Earth Stood Still, it could have potentially earned $1.6 billion dollars, making it one of the top grossing films of all time.

Next week, Klaatu will have to contend with Mikey Rourke's award worthy turn in The Wrestler, the animated kiddy flick The Tale of Despereaux, Will Smith's mysterious Seven Pounds, and the Jim Carrey comedy Yes Man.