"Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" opened to the No. 1 place of the North American box office with lower-than-expected receipts, leading a consistently slow domestic market which is preparing itself for the Christmas holiday.

The British-American action-mystery film, a sequel to the 2009 film which was based on the main character of the same name created by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is projected to reap 40 million U.S. dollars over three days beginning on Friday, according to distributor Warner Bros.

The film, dubbed "Sherlock Holmes 2", debuted to 14.7 million dollars in sales in 3,703 locations in the U.S. and Canada, which is significantly lower than the first Sherlock's 24.6 million-dollar opening on Christmas Day 2009. The showing was also lower than 17.5 million dollars harvested by "Tron Legacy" exactly on the same day last year.

Compared to the 62.3 million-dollar opening achieved by the first movie in the franchise, which turned out to be a huge box-office success, the sequel paled and left producers and Warner Bros. disappointed. Warner had expected the movie to garner at least 40 million dollars.

On the whole, the Sherlock Holmes film's showing is in line with the overall slow and soft situation in the pre-Christmas market. The North American box office has taken in 9.64 billion dollars from Jan. 1 through Sunday, registering a 3.4 percent decrease from last year.

The movie paired up Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law again, in the roles of the iconic detective and his companion Dr. John H. Watson. As a result of good word of mouth built by the first film and the popularity of the original character, the second installment appealed to moviegoers who gave it an A- CinemaScore rating, compared with a B grade for the 2009 original film.

The weekend also saw two other sequels which made a good showing at the box office, tailing "Sherlock Holmes 2".

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked", Fox's latest installment in the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise, was No. 2 as it fetched 23.5 million dollars from 3,723 theaters, a much worse showing than "Sherlock Homes 2".

The 3-D GGI/live-action hybrid about singing chipmunks also eclipsed in comparison to 44.3 million dollars for the first Alvin, opening in 2007, and 48.9 million dollars for the sequel which debuted on Dec. 23 in 2009.

Those who saw the movie gave it an average grade of B+. According to Fox, 53 percent of the moviegoers who saw the film were under the age of 25.

At No. 3 is " Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol", the fourth installment in the "Mission: Impossible" series. The Tom Cruise vehicle is projected to sell 13 million dollars in tickets from 425 venues including 300 IMAX theaters. The film is scheduled to open to wide release on Wednesday.

At No. 4 is "New Year's Eve" which sold 7.4 million dollars in tickets, followed by "The Sitter" with 4.4 million dollars.

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