Disney fairy-tale romantic comedy "Enchanted" stayed on top of the box office in the United States and Canada for a second weekend, while overall ticket sales returned to the slump after a booming Thanksgiving holiday, preliminary figures released Sunday showed.

"Enchanted," a film about a cartoon princess who is exiled from the fairyland to real-world New York, took in about 17 million dollars over the three-day period. It has earned nearly 71 million dollars since its release before the Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, Sony's black-themed comedy "This Christmas" and Paramount's 3-D animated saga of "Beowulf" remained at No. 2 and No. 3 over weekend, with 8.4 million and 7.9 million dollars respectively.

Weinstein Co.'s operation room thriller "Awake" became the only new release in the top 10. The film about a Wall Street banker who is conscious during heart surgery opened at No. 4 with 6 million dollars, followed by 20th Century Fox's video-game adaptation "Hitman" with 5.8 million dollars.

The top-selling 12 films in North America took in 76.6 million dollars collectively this weekend, a 6-percent decline from the same weekend last year and only nearly half of that in last weekend, according to Los Angeles-based box office tracking firm Media By Numbers.

However, with the record ticket sales it has achieved this summer with a slew of blockbusters, Hollywood's domestic take so far this year reached about 8.7 billion dollars this week, up 4.7 percent from the same period last year.

(Xinhua News Agency December 3, 2007)