Twilight finale holds firm at number one

The franchise has made its actors into Hollywood A-listers

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, the final instalment of the vampire fantasy films, has topped the US box office for the second week in a row.

Early estimates suggest it took $43.1m (£26.9m) between Friday and Sunday,

James Bond film Skyfall was second with $36m (£22.4m), followed by Steven Spielberg's Lincoln with $25m (£15.6m).

Domestic revenues for the year currently stand at $9.75bn (£6bn), with a strong December line-up still to come.

The current annual domestic record is $10.6bn (£6.61bn), set in 2009.

"We're barrelling toward a record-breaking box-office year," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

"It's built on the back of just a lot of really strong movies that have come out over the past few weekends. It bodes very well for the rest of the holidays."

December's releases include Killing Them Softly starring Brad Pitt, Tom Hooper's adaptation of Les Miserables, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty.

The highest new entry on this week's chart was Rise of the Guardians, a Paramount and Dreamworks Animation collaboration, which took $24m (£14.9m).

The film, based on William Joyce's Guardians of Childhood books, features popular figures such as Father Christmas, the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy fighting an evil overlord.

Ang Lee's adaptation of Yann Martel's Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi rounded out the top five.

Other films in the top 10 included Red Dawn, Silver Linings Playbook and Argo.