"Meet the Fockers" tops Christmas box office

The comedy film, "Meet The Fockers" has topped the Christmas weekend box office in North America.

14:43 27 December 2004

The comedy film, "Meet The Fockers" has topped the Christmas weekend box office in North America.

The sequel to the Ben Stiller comedy "Meet The Parents" set a new Christmas Day record, taking $19.1m (9.9m) on December 25 alone.

The Christmas hit took a total of some $44.7m (23.2m) between December 24 and 26, according to studio estimates.

The film sees Robert De Niro star again as the unimpressed prospective father-in-law to Stiller's nerdy character Greg Focker.

In the sequel to the popular first film, Barbara Streisand and Dustin Hoffman feature as Stiller's ageing hippy parents, who find that they have little in common with their son's future in-laws when they come to visit them in Detroit.

Despite the success of "Meet The Fockers", film analysts say that Christmas box office takings were down on last year.

"When Christmas falls on a weekend, it's bad for business," explained Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which compiles box office statistics.

The most popular 12 films over the Christmas weekend took around 121.9m (63.3m), compared with $165.8m (86.1m) in 2003, when the third Lord of the Rings film proved to be the festive box office smash.

Bill Cosby's comedy "Fat Albert" was the second most popular movie at the box office this Christmas, taking a reported $12.7m (6.6m) following its Christmas Day opening.

"A Series of Unfortunate Events", Lemony Snicket's film starring Jim Carrey, was beaten into third place, taking $12.5m (6.5m).

"The Aviator", in which Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Howard Hughes, entered the festive movie chart in fourth place, taking $9.4m (4.9m).