Fat New Year's Haul Masks Mystery of Missing Audience

Hollywood finished a weak year with a strong holiday box office bounce, thanks to a strong slate of movies with a wide appeal to a broad audience.

Sequels to "Mission: Impossible," "Sherlock Holmes" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks" led the chart, but there was good across-the-board business for all sorts of movies -- good per-screen averages for "Dragon Tattoo," "War Horse," "The Descendants" and "We Bought a Zoo." (That's a nice slate of directors -- Fincher, Spielberg, Alexander Payne and Cameron Crowe).

BO MOJO reports that Crowe's "Zoo" movie received the second-best week-to-week bump ever for a family movie, and "Descendants" looks to the word-of-mouth champ among likely Oscar contenders, albeit in limited release.

The holiday weekend box office comports with some interesting analyses reported in the Los Angeles Times over the weekend. Annual attendance and revenue were down, even as audiences flocked to opening weekend tentpole sequels. The missing audience appears to comprise folks who choose their movies more carefully, read reviews or consult with friends before investing in a night out. Note how the second-tier of holiday-weekend movies has that good-director, WOM pedigree.