'Contraband' opens as No 1 at weekend box office

New York, Jan 16 (ANI): Mark Wahlberg's 'Contraband' stole the top spot at the weekend box office from 'Beauty and the Beast 3D' with some perfectly executed timing.

According to Hollywood.com, the heist thriller, which hauled 24.1 dollars, avoided the crowded field of action movies hitting the multiplex in the coming months.

"You could put a movie like 'Contraband' out in the summer, but you'd have to spend so much money marketing it it would kill the profits," the New York Daily News quoted Paul Dergaradedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com as saying.

"Releasing this in January where you don't have to commit all the advertising you need to go up against movies like 'The Avengers' and 'The Dark Knight Rises' is a really smart choice," he said.

Disney's 3D re-release 'Beauty and the Beast' finished second with an earning of 18.5 million dollars.

However, industry experts say that the film might get an extra bump from Martin Luther King's Day holiday, when kids are off from school.

The weekend's other major new release, 'Joyful Noise', finished in fourth place behind 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' with a disappointing 4.1 million dollars.

Last week's champ, 'The Devil Inside' plummeted into sixth place with 3.1 million dollars as word of mouth and scary critical reviews caught up with the horror film. (ANI)