Penguins, James Bond stay on top at box office

LOS ANGELES, Nov 26 (Reuters) The dancing penguins of ''Happy Feet'' stayed atop the North American box office, while the new James Bond shot toward a box office record for the franchise, according to estimates issued today by box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.

The animated tale of ''Happy Feet,'' released by Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros., earned 37.9 million dollars over the three-day weekend in the United States and Canada, bringing its two-week box office take to 100.1 million dollars.

The latest James Bond movie, ''Casino Royale,'' featuring actor Daniel Craig as the franchise's newest Bond, pulled in 31 million dollars, bringing its domestic total for two weeks 94.2 million dollars. The film's distributor, Sony Corp's Columbia Pictures, said ''Casino Royale's'' worldwide sales of 224.4 million dollars put it on track to become the biggest Bond ever.

''The fans of James Bond that have been around for a long, long time are embracing (Craig) as Bond but he is creating new fans of Bond as well. We have the best of both worlds in that regard,'' said Rory Bruer, Sony's president of domestic distribution.

''Deja Vu,'' a time-traveling thriller starring Denzel Washington, took the third box office slot to become the top debuting film for the week. The film's 20.8 million dollars in ticket sales propelled Washington to his seventh straight opening of 20 million dollars or more, according to the Walt Disney Co, whose Touchstone Pictures division released ''Deja Vu.'' ''Deck the Halls,'' a holiday comedy starring Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito as neighbors feuding over a display of Christmas lights, bowed in fourth place with 12 million dollars.

The surprise mockumentary hit ''Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'' slipped to fifth place with 10.4 million dollars after four weeks in release.

Its cumulative domestic box office gross of 109.3 dollars was the highest of this week's top 10 films.

The film stars British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as a cluelessly offensive, oversexed TV reporter from Central Asia.

''Borat'' and ''Deck the Halls'' were released by Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.

VOICE OF A NOVELIST Disney's ''The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause,'' with Tim Allen reprising his role as Santa Claus, slipped to sixth from No. 4 with weekend sales of 10 million dollars and total sales of 67.2 million dollars in its fourth week in release.

The offbeat comedy ''Stranger than Fiction,'' starring Will Ferrell as a man who hears the voice of a novelist (Emma Thompson) writing his life and imminent death, dropped one box office position to No. 7 with three-day sales of 6 million dollars and total sales of 32.8 million dollars after three weeks in release.

''Flushed Away,'' the animated comedy about a rat who is flushed down a London sewer, took the No. 8 spot with 5.8 million dollars in sales and total sales of 57.4 million dollars.

DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc, which made the film with Aardman Animations, has had to take a loss on the film.

''Flushed Away'' was distributed by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc.

A surprisingly good performance and an expanded theater count for ''Bobby'', a drama about the night Bobby Kennedy was fatally shot in Los Angeles, vaulted it to the No. 9 spot from 37th a week earlier, with three-day ticket sales of 4.9 million dollars.

Warner Bros. ''The Fountain,'' a science fiction drama starring Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman about a search for the secret of eternal life, debuted at a disappointing tenth with 3.7 million dollars for three days and cumulative sales of 5.4 million dollars.

Reuters DH VP0130