Cruise's new Mission tops charts

Tom Cruise’s new mission remains impossible to beat at the US box office.

Studio estimates placed 'Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol' in the top spot for the second-straight weekend with $31.3m.

With a $134.1m domestic total, it’s the first $100m hit with Cruise in the lead role since 2006’s 'Mission: Impossible III'.

The Paramount release led a solid New Year’s weekend as Hollywood managed fair business to end a sluggish year on a more promising note for 2012.

Domestic revenues closed out at $10.22bn for 2011, down 3.4% from 2010’s, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

That was a slight improvement over Hollywood.com’s projections a week earlier, when Hollywood was limping through the normally busy holiday season with a lineup of underachieving movies.