Weekend Box Office: HUGE Weekend As 'The Vow' Reigns

As dismal as the end of 2011 was at the box office, the early part of 2012 seems to be making up the difference. This pre-Valentine's Day weekend was a huge one, with two big releases overperforming and the two others doing a nice job as well.

"The Vow" was the biggest winner, coming in at #1 with a haul of $41 million. The romance, which stars Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams, most likely received a boost from pre-Valentine's dates. The reviews certainly didn't help, as the movie earned only a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes. But with the movie overperforming like this even before Valentine's Day hits, the studio will not be complaining.

In second place was "Safe House," which surprisingly overperformed as well. The movie has two big names attached in Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington, but did not have a huge advertising campaign. Regardless, "Safe House" earned a whopping $39 million on the weekend.

Coming in third place was the third new release of the weekend, "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island." The 3D kid's movie stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, "The Hunger Games" star Josh Hutcherson, and some very large bees. The total for the flick looks to be around $27 million on the weekend.

"Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" got a 3D re-release this weekend, marking the first such release of the entire six-movie series. The movie performed as expected, pulling in about $23 million on the weekend and putting it in fourth place. That means that four movies earned over $20 million on a non-holiday weekend for the first time ever.

The fifth place finisher was superhero movie "Chronicle," which had a solid holdover from its first weekend to earn $12 million. That's a drop of only 46%, and puts the two-week cume for the found-footage film at $39.8 million.

1. "The Vow" - $41 million
2. "Safe House" - $39 million
3. "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" - $27 million
4. "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" - $23 million
5. "Chronicle" - $12 million ($39.8M)