Vampire bite off rivals to box office glory for 3rd week

The latest Twilight teen vampire sequel was the most popular movie in North America for the third weekend in a row, industry estimates showed Sunday.The vampire heart-throbber neared the quarter-billion-dollar mark, raking in a total of $247.3 million since it opened, and $16.9 this weekend alone, according to Exhibitor Relations.That put the teen flick ahead of The Muppets, the new film based on the Jim Henson puppet characters, which grossed $11.2 million in its second week in theaters for a total run of $56.1 million so far.Martin Scorceses first 3D film Hugo came in third place. The adventure drama based on Brian Selznicks novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret about a boy who lives alone in a Paris railway station raked in $7.6 million.Staying in fourth place was animated family comedy Arthur Christmas, about Santas son tasked with completing a mission by Christmas morning. It pulled in $7.4 million.In other family fare, penguin tale Happy Feet Two landed in fifth place, with $6 million.Adam Sandlers Jack and Jill comedy in which he plays both a successful Los Angeles advertising executive and his needy twin sister Jill, came in sixth. It got $5.5 million.In seventh was George Clooney comedy-drama The Descendants, with $5.2 million, enough to push it ahead of big-budget 3-D epic Immortals, which got 4.4 million.Action comedy Tower Heist, starring Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller, scored $4.1 million to come in ninth, ahead of animated childrens film Puss in Boots, with $3 million.