Stiller's 'Museum' comedy enjoys Christmas bonanza

LOS ANGELES, Dec 24 (Reuters) The new Ben Stiller comedy ''Night at the Museum'' was the top choice for North American moviegoers not distracted by Christmas chores, according to weekend sales estimates issued by the studios today.

Twentieth Century Fox's coolly reviewed adaptation of the eponymous 32-page children's book sold a better-than-expected 30.8 million dollar worth of tickets during the three days beginning Friday.

Other new releases included the Sylvester Stallone boxing comeback ''Rocky Balboa'' at No 3 with 12.5 million dollars, the Robert De Niro-directed spy drama ''The Good Shepherd'' at No 4 with 10 million dollars, and the football melodrama ''We Are Marshall'' at No. 7 with a disappointing 6.6 million dollars.

Last weekend's champion, Will Smith's inspirational drama ''The Pursuit of Happyness,'' dropped to a distant No 2 with 15 million dollars. The film, released by Sony Corp's Columbia Pictures, has earned 53.3 million dollars after 10 days.

Many theaters resembled ghost towns as travel plans, last-minute shopping and related activities took precedence.

The studios hope business will pick up dramatically on Christmas Day and throughout the week.

''AMAZING NUMBER'' For its part, Fox was pleased with the 30.8 million dollar in sales for ''Night at the Museum'' since it had expected the film would open at about 20 million dollars.

''For a tough weekend, this is an amazing number,'' Bruce Snyder, president of domestic theatrical distribution at the News Corp-owned studio. ''Everybody is pretty preoccupied.'' Stiller, in a familiar role as a hapless family man, plays a security guard at a museum where the exhibits experience nocturnal resurrections. The Los Angeles Times described it as ''tedious,'' and the New York Post as ''highly derivative.'' ''Rocky Balboa'' was a knockout with the critics, and got a head start on its competition by opening on Wednesday, when it was the No 1 choice. The film's total stands at 22.1 million dollars, about 2 million dollars shy of its modest production cost.

Stallone also wrote and directed the film, the first in the series since 1990's underwhelming ''Rocky V'' Distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer started the promotional campaign about six months ago to get skeptical moviegoers ''comfortable'' with the far-fetched idea of the 60-year-old actor returning to the ring one more time, according to Clark Woods, president of domestic distribution at the closely held studio.

Exit polling conducted Saturday night indicated that almost half the audience was aged between 18 and 34, a sign that the franchise resonates with moviegoers not around for the 1976 launch of the ''Rocky'' series. Less surprisingly, male moviegoers comprised 62 per cent of the audience, according to data supplied by MGM.

The fourth-ranked movie, ''The Good Shepherd,'' stars Matt Damon as a World War II-era American spy. It was released by Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric Co, which said it was happy with the 10 million dollar opening.

Rounding out the top five was another children's book adaptation, ''Charlotte's Web,'' which dropped two places with 8 milliondollar; the 10-day haul for the Paramount Pictures release stands at 26.8 million dollar. Paramount is a unit of Viacom Inc.

At No 7, ''We Are Marshall'' stars Matthew McConaughey in the fact-based story of a coach who rallies a small town after its college football team is killed in a 1970 plane crash.

Including group sales, the total for the Warner Bros release stands at 7.7 million dollars. A spokesman for the Time Warner Inc-owned studio said he had hoped for a stronger opening, but was heartened by enthusiastic exit polling.

REUTERS MQA RN0142