King Kong didn't exactly go ape at the box office this weekend.

Sure the big fella swung it on top of the charts, but Peter Jackson's remake of the monkey-takes-Manhattan classic tallied $50.1 million Friday through Sunday, well below expectations promised by the monster hype, but still enough to rank as the fourth-highest December opening ever.

The F/X-heavy tale, which cost more than $200 million to make, stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody and Andy Serkis as the inspiration for the animated great ape. Kong averaged $14,050 per site at 3,568 theaters, which didn't squeeze as many showings out of the film as a typical release because of its epic three-hour, seven-minute running time.

Since its debut Wednesday, the PG-13 Universal offering has grossed $66.2 million.

"The expectation or the guessing or the hypothesizing of what [Kong] was going to do is based on a lot of understanding and ignorance over how a three-hour movie plays that doesn't come with legions of fans," Marc Shmuger, vice chairman of Universal Pictures, groused to the Associated Press, as he tried to brush aside suggestions of low return on expectations. "This is not Tolkien. This is not the Harry Potter fan base."

(He failed to mention that it is based on the beloved Fay Wray-fronted 1933 original, which came in 43rd on the American Film Institute's Top 100 movies. The new version, which has enjoyed generally positive reviews, made the AFI's 10 best list for this year.)

Paul Dergarabedian, president of the movie ticket-tracking firm Exhibitor Relations, admits he was among those who had very high expectations for the primate update. He says perhaps the movie simply "fell victim" to those predictions of truly giant success, but he's optimistic that it will have "long playability," even during what will be a very crowded Christmas season as many more attractions are unwrapped throughout the next seven days. Kong's audience did jump 40 percent Saturday over Friday, and Dergarabedian says it has "great word of mouth." He reasons that people are "simply busy now" but "they will get around to seeing it, because it's a good movie."

Comparisons are being made to Titanic, which achieved spectacular success after opening fairly modestly in December '97 with $27.6 million.

And it's not like Kong tanked. The simian-happy flick only ranks behind two of Jackson's Lord of the Ring installments--the three-hour, 20-minute The Return of the King (the biggest December opening weekend, with $72.6 million in 2003) and the three-hour The Two Towers (the third-highest December opening, with $62 million in 2002), --and the relatively short two-hour, 12-minute The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which is now number two on the December list, with $65.6 million last weekend. Overall, Kong finished on top of the box office in all 38 territories where it opened.

Narnia, meantime, continued to play to big audiences. Despite dropping 51 percent from its big opening, the classic C.S. Lewis fable still managed to pull in $31.8 million to bring its total to $113.2 million.

The only new movie in wide release was The Family Stone, which debuted in third place with an estimated $12.5 million. Fox's PG-13 female-friendly ensemble drama, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Dermot Mulroney, Luke Wilson and Diane Keaton, worked well as counterprogramming to the testosterone-targeting Kong. The modestly budget entry averaged $5,077 at 2,466 sites, attracting an audience that was 77 percent female, 51 percent of whom were older than 25--a group Fox distribution executive Bruce Snyder notes is "normally a tough audience to pull in during the holiday shopping season."

While Universal was obviously preoccupied with Kong, the studio also began to unspool The Producers in limited release, where it averaged a decent $25,054 at six sites for $154,590. The adaptation of the Broadway hit based on the 1967 Mel Brooks movie has a cast that includes Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell.

Overall, it was a huge weekend for the movie biz. The top 12 movies had a combined gross of $122.5 million, up 6 percent from last weekend and a whoping 24 percent over this time last year, when Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events had a mildly fortunate $30 million debut.

Contributing strongly to the overall business was a range of movies for all types of audiences. In its fifth week, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire earned another $6 million in fourth place to bring its overall domestic gross to $252.6 million. Syriana, the political thriller about the oil business, continued its strong run, with $5.6 million in fifth place for a $22.5 million total. And Walk the Line dipped only 36 percent from last week to earn $3.7 million in sixth place, bringing its gross to $82.6 million.

The top per-screen winner for the week was the critical darling Brokeback Mountain. The cowboys-in-love drama, which racked up several awards and led the Golden Globe nominations, averaged a hearty $36,355 at 69 theaters for a $2.5 million. The R-rated Focus release, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, moved up from 15th to 8th place, a 358 percent jump, and has lassoed $3.5 million in two weeks.

Here is how the top 10 stacked up, according to Exhibitor Relations:

1. King Kong, $50.1 million
2. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, $31.8 million
3. The Family Stone, $12.5 million
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, $6 million
5. Syriana, $5.6 million
6. Walk the Line, $3.7 million
7. Yours, Mine & Ours, $3.5 million
8. Brokeback Mountain, $2.5 million
9. Just Friends, $2.1 million
10. Aeon Flux, $1.8 million