LOS ANGELES – Tom Cruise’s new mission remains impossible to beat at the box office.

Studio estimates Sunday placed “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” in the No. 1 spot for the second straight weekend with $31.3 million. With a $134.1 million domestic total, it’s the first $100 million hit with Cruise in the lead role since 2006’s “Mission: Impossible III.”

Additional Photos

Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt, with Paula Patton as Jane, Simon Pegg as Benji, and Jeremy Renner as Brandt in “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.” Associated Press photos

Hugh Jackman

James Earl Jones

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 revenue closed out at $10.22 billion for 2011, down 3.4 percent 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.

Still, movie admissions were down sharply for the second year in a row. Factoring in higher ticket prices, domestic attendance slipped to 1.28 billion in 2011, off 4.2 percent from 2010 admissions and the smallest audiences Hollywood has had since 1995, according to Hollywood.com.

Hollywood started the year in a deep rut, with domestic revenue trailing 2010’s by 20 percent or more as a weak first quarter fell far short of the previous year’s spectacular results for the sci-fi sensation “Avatar.”

Studios nearly dug themselves out from that deficit over the summer, but business lagged through the fall and holidays.

Hugh Jackman plus Broadway equals lots of cash

NEW YORK – Hugh Jackman has left Broadway with a lot of broken hearts — and records.

The hunky Australian actor’s one-man Broadway concert show closed Sunday afternoon at the Broadhurst Theatre after having earned $2,057,354 in its final week, the highest weekly gross recorded by the Shubert Organization, which owns the Broadhurst and 16 other Broadway theaters.

Over its 10-week run, Jackman earned $14,638,428, producers said. He now owns 10 of the 11 top-grossing weeks at the Broadhurst.

Jackman, best known for being the hairy Wolverine in “The X-Men” franchise, routinely sold out the 1,176-seat theater and usually posted weekly grosses of $1.5 million, often higher than rival musicals such as “Jersey Boys,” “Mama Mia!” “How to Succeed in Business,” “Anything Goes” and “Follies.”

Only “Wicked” and “The Lion King,” produced by other organizations, consistently outdid Jackman. But those shows also had much higher overhead costs.

Singer Etta James is off respirator

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Etta James’ manager says the terminally ill blues singer is breathing on her own after being taken off a respirator.

Lupe De Leon said Friday that the change in her condition is great news and that the 73-year-old singer’s blood pressure is normal.

James was put on a respirator when she was hospitalized in Southern California on Dec. 21 because she was having trouble breathing, De Leon said.

Best known for the hit “At Last,”James has been diagnosed with terminal leukemia and is suffering from dementia. She has been receiving mostly at-home care.

James Earl Jones swears in sheriff

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. – Not every county sheriff gets to be sworn in by the voice of Darth Vader.

Actor James Earl Jones performed that duty Thursday for his longtime friend and neighbor Adrian “Butch” Anderson, the sheriff in Dutchess County, N.Y., where Jones lives.

Anderson’s fourth term as sheriff in the Hudson Valley county began with Jones administering the oath of office in place of a judge.

Jones told about 250 attendees at the ceremony in the city of Poughkeepsie that his many movie roles included playing a judge in “Sommersby,” a 1993 post-Civil War film that starred Richard Gere and Jodie Foster.

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