Four Christmases lead the way over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend grossing $46.1 million with its debut on Wednesday.  Warner Bros new comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn packed theaters with an average of 3,310 people. This is Vaughn’s chance to redeem himself after his most recent role in Fred Claus (2007), which grossed only $72 million total. In the movie, Kate and Brad are a happily unmarried couple who usually escapes their crazy families during the holidays by enjoying a tropical vacation by themselves. When their flight is cancelled due to intense fog, they are forced to spend Christmas with their two sets of divorced parents. The film also stars Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Krisitin Chenoweth, Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw as the couple’s eccentric relatives. 

The blockbuster, Twilight brought in another $39.5 million this holiday weekend, bringing its total to $119.7 million in just two weeks.  With the sequel, New Moon, already underway, Stephenie Meyer must be pleased, as her novel has now turned into a cultural icon for teenagers everywhere.  We expect Twilight merchandise to be flying off the shelves for Christmas this year.

Bolt ranks third for the second week in a row, grossing $36.0 million. Even with big names voicing the movie, John Travolta (Bolt) and Miley Cyrus (Penny), a vampire/human love story and Vince Vaughn’s comedic charm out drew it.  Bolt is Disney and Pixar’s new animated flick about a dog named Bolt, who has his own reality show in Hollywood, but gets lost, and needs to find his way home. It has the potential to be a crowd pleaser, but hitting theaters the same week as the long-anticipated Twilight means Bolt’s bark is bigger than its bite.

Quantum of Solace falls from second place last week to fourth, earning $27.5 million over the five-day holiday weekend. The extra two days let the newest James Bond installment gain 2.9 percent over the previous weekend, suggesting our favorite super agent can still kick butt after three weeks in theaters.

Baz Luhrmann’s Australia failed to live up to the hype, grossing only $20 million in its five-day opener. The over-the-top budget of $130 million is going to be hard to make up when the movie can’t fill theaters even over an extra-long holiday weekend. The story follows Nicole Kidman who plays an aristocrat woman who inherits a ranch from her murdered husband. She meets and falls in love with a ranch worker, played by Hugh Jackman, and then they become entangled in a mission to save orphans on the island nation as the Japanese bomb the city of Darwin. 

Also opening this weekend was the action-packed Transporter 3, starring Jason Statham.  The third installment grossed $18.2 million over the five-day weekend, as compared to the first Transporter, which grossed $9.1 million in a three-day weekend and 2005’s Transporter 2, which grossed $16.5 million in a three-day weekend. 

Milk, which has already received rave reviews, depicts the life of the first openly gay politician elected in California, Harvey Milk. It scored $1.9 million in just 36 theaters, ranking 10th this weekend. Milk is expanding its release this Friday, making it available to larger audiences across the nation.

In 11th place another rumored Oscar contender, Slumdog Millionaire, earned $1.8 million in only 49 theaters. Both Milk and Slumdog averaged more than double the per-screen average of the top two movies this weekend. Slumdog Millionaire averaged $36,062 and Milk averaged $53,930, compared with Four Christmases that averaged $13,914 and $11,545 for Twilight. 

 —Jessica Delli Santi