Hairy vs. Harry: At box office, ‘Tangled’ wins

Hairy vs. Harry: At box office, ‘Tangled’ wins

los angeles

Hair has won out over Harry Potter at the weekend box office.

Mandy Moore’s animated musical “Tangled,” a new take on long-haired fairy-tale princess Rapunzel, sewed up the No. 1 spot with $21.5 million in its second weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. That raised the Disney release’s domestic total to $96.5 million.

“Harry Potter” slipped to No. 2 this weekend with $16.7 million. The next-to-last chapter in the Warner Bros. franchise about the teen wizard lifted its domestic haul to $244.2 million.

Business was off sharply after a brisk Thanksgiving weekend, which is one of the busiest periods of the year at movie theaters.

With just $88 million in overall receipts, this was Hollywood’s second-worst weekend of the year, behind the meager $81.8 million haul the weekend after Labor Day, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

The weekend’s only new wide release, Rogue Pictures’ action tale “The Warrior’s Way,” was a dud with just $3.1 million.

The top five rounded out with a tie between “Burlesque” and “Unstoppable” at $6.1 million, and “Love & Other Drugs” in fifth place with $5.7 million.

Accident halts live game show in Germany

BERLIN

A live broadcast of a popular German game show was halted after a contestant was severely injured while trying to jump over a moving car driven by his father.

The accident occurred Saturday night just before Canadian teen idol Justin Bieber was to appear on the show, prompting him to say on his Twitter account: “Please pray for Samuel Koch & his family as we wait and hope for his health and safety.”

Koch’s stunt may have gone terribly wrong because the special shoes he was wearing for the jump, featuring a suspension system, malfunctioned.

Broadcaster ZDF said the accident by the 23-year-old prompted it to cancel the live broadcast of the “Wetten Dass” (“Bet It”), which had an audience of about 10 million people, according to German media.

Koch suffered multiple back injuries and fractures, underwent surgery Sunday, and his condition initially was life-threatening, the German news agency DPAD quoted Duesseldorf hospital Dr. Wolfgang Raab as saying.

But it remained unclear if or when Koch would fully recover since “he is in an extremely critical stage,” Raab told journalists.

Bieber, a 16-year-old singer, added on Twitter that he felt sorry for not being able to perform in Germany, but “some things are more important than putting on a show. We will be back I promise.”

Bristol Palin: Mom didn’t make me dance

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

Bristol Palin says her mother didn’t force her to go on “Dancing with the Stars.”

The 20-year-old daughter of 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used a Facebook post to react to a blog entry by a fellow contestant, comedian Margaret Cho. Cho wrote that the former Alaska governor blamed her daughter for the 2008 loss and told her she “owed” it to her to go on “Dancing with the Stars” to win back America’s love.

Bristol Palin — who was an unmarried teenager when she had her son, Tripp — says it saddens her that anyone would think her mother blamed her for anything that occurred in the election. She says her parents were her top supporters on the show.

Bristol Palin finished third in the contest.

Associated Press