The FINANCIAL -- Walt Disney Co.’s “A Christmas Carol” has topped the North American box office chart in its first weekend on release. The Disney animated version of the Charles Dickens classic dropped last weekend’s No. 1 movie, “Michael Jackson’s This Is It,” to second place.

Walt Disney Studios' "A Christmas Carol," produced at a cost of nearly $200 million, opened to a weak $31 million in the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates, Los Angels Times reported. But the somber, well-reviewed festival favorite "Precious," which Lionsgate acquired at the Sundance Film Festival for $5.5 million, sold $1.8 million worth of tickets at just 18 theaters, setting a limited-release record.

Disney had always been counting on a long box-office run for "Carol," which should benefit from increasing interest as the holidays get closer and the fact that more than half its theaters are playing the picture on 3-D screens, which carry a ticket price surcharge, according to the same source. "We know Christmas-themed movies opening in early November tend to have a much greater multiple than others," said Disney domestic distribution President Chuck Viane, referring to the "multiple" of a movie's final gross compared with its opening. "All we had to do is get ourselves established."

“A Christmas Carol,” a 3-D adaptation of the Charles Dickens holiday tale, is Disney’s sixth top debut this year, Bloomberg informs. The company ranks fifth among the six major studios in U.S. ticket sales in 2009 with $1 billion as of Nov. 5, according to Box Office Mojo, a California-based researcher. “Up,” from Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios, is the top 3-D movie in the U.S. this year with $292.9 million.

“The thing about Christmas films is they hold until the new year,” said Chad Hartigan, a box-office analyst at Exhibitor Relations in Los Angeles, according to the same source. “So, ‘A Christmas Carol’ has plenty of room to stretch its wings and gross over $150 million domestically,” he said.  Directed by Robert Zemeckis, “A Christmas Carol” stars Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge, the misanthrope who is visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve.

Director Robert Zemeckis shot the movie using the same performance-capture technology used on his 2004 holiday offering "The Polar Express," AP reported. Carrey and his co-stars acted on a bare soundstage as digital cameras caught their performances, with computer animators later adding costumes, sets, props and other effects.

"A Christmas Carol" came in ahead of "Polar Express," which had an opening weekend of $23.5 million, according to the same source. But it fell well short of the $55.1 million opening for Carrey's previous holiday tale, "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas" in 2000.

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