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In a surprisingly robust debut, 2012 took in a huge $65M to easily capture the weekend box-office crown. Despite completely sucking, the latest Roland Emmerich disaster pic easily out-distanced last week's champ, Disney's A Christmas Carol which managed to bring in a decent $22.3M in its second frame ($63.2M). Grant Heslov's hilarious The Men Who Stare at Goats grabbed third place ($6.2M | $23.3M), just ahead of indie powerhouse Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire ($6M | $8.9M). The creepy and morbid Michael Jackson's That Was It rounded out the top 5 ($5.1M | $68.2M).
The rest of the top 10 was all hold-overs: the phony The Fourth Kind ($4.7M | $20.5M), the resilient Couples Retreat ($4.2M | $102.1M), the fading Paranormal Activity ($4.2M | $103.8M), the weirdly successful Law Abiding Citizen ($3.9M | $67.3M) and the awful The Box ($3.1M | $13.2M). Newcomer Pirate Radio just missed landing in the top 10 ($2.8M). In limited release, the fantastic Fantastic Mr. Fox did huge business ($65,000 per theater) while The Messenger ($12,500 per) and Uncertainty ($12,000) both enjoyed solid debuts. Dare, on the other hand, had a mediocre start ($6000).