Darren Aronofsky’s Biblical-based epic Noah, starring Russell Crowe, opened in the top spot at the box office in its debut weekend, pulling in $43.7 million and easily outstripping other wide opener Sabotage, which slotted seventh, with just under $5.3 million. In its second weekend, young adult fiction adaptation Divergent pulled in $25.6 million, pushing its domestic haul to $94.4 million.

Rounding out the top 10 were Muppets Most Wanted, with $11.28 million; animated family film Mr. Peabody & Sherman, with $9.07 million; God’s Not Dead, with $8.8 million; Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, with $8.54 million; the aforementioned Sabotage, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; Need for Speed, with $4.23 million; 300: Rise of an Empire with $4.21 million; and Liam Neeson’s Non-Stop, with $4.01 million. Meanwhile, in its eighth weekend of release, critical and commercial juggernaut The Lego Movie finally slipped out of the top 10, pulling in just over $3 million while crossing the $400 million cumulative mark.

Riding a wave of entirely justified great buzz, The Lego Movie topped the weekend box office with $69 million, easily outpacing fellow new wide openers The Monuments Men and Vampire Academy, which slotted second and seventh, respectively, with $22 million and $3.9 million. The inexplicably popular Ride Along pushed past the $100 million domestic mark with an additional $9.59 million, good for third place. Frozen held strong in fourth place with $6.87 million in its twelfth week of release, while Lone Survivor pulled in an additional $5.57 million, pushing its domestic total over $113 million. Rounding out the top 10 were bro-tastic comedy That Awkward Moment, with $5.24 million; the aforementioned Vampire Academy, a messy, unrewarding mash-up of different genres and clashing tonalities; animated kiddie film The Nut Job, with $3.75 million; Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, with $3.53 million; and Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin‘s peach pie commercial Labor Day, with $3.18 million.

Alfonso Cuarón‘s Gravity, starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, had no problem reaching dizzying heights over the weekend. The breathtaking and meditative space drama easily locked down the top spot at the box office, pulling in $55.79 million in its debut frame — a new record for an October bow. Amongst fellow new openers Runner Runner, starring Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake, slotted third, with just $7.7 million, while Pulling Strings, with a robust $6,275-per-screen average, placed ninth, with $2.47 million.

Animated family film sequel Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 slipped to second place overall, ringing up another $20.95 million and putting its 10-day domestic total just north of $60 million. Rounding out the otherwise tightly clustered top 10 were: Prisoners, with $5.75 million; director Ron Howard’s Rush, with $4.48 million; Don Jon, with $4.16 million; Baggage Claim, with $4.08 million; Insidious: Chapter 2, with $3.9 million; and Enough Said, with $2.19 million. In its ninth week of release, meanwhile, We’re the Millers pushed ever closer to a quarter-billion-dollar worldwide gross, presumably at least in part on the strength of Jennifer Aniston‘s striptease sequence.

His last movie, December’s Jack Reacher, may have lost its opening weekend showdown with hobbits, but Tom Cruise reasserted his box office superiority over the past several days with the science-fiction action drama Oblivion. Grossing an estimated $38 million in its debut frame, and facing no real wide release competition, nor a weekend with still-on-the-lam Boston Marathon bombers, the film easily unseated the Jackie Robinson tale 42, which grossed $18 million-plus in its second week, bringing its cumulative domestic total thus far to $54 million. Animated family film The Croods held steady in third place, pulling in another $9.5 million and bringing its five-week total to just under $155 million, while the fifth sequel in the Scary Movie franchise dropped 55 percent in its second weekend, pulling in just $6.3 million. Slotting fifth, in its fourth week of release, G.I. Joe: Retaliation grossed $5.78 million, raising its Stateside haul to just over $111 million, and probably guaranteeing another installment.

Rounding out the top 10, Derek Cianfrance‘s The Place Beyond the Pines pulled in $4.74 million; Die-Hard-in-the-White-House Olympus Has Fallen rang up $4.5 million; the Evil Dead remake scared up $4.1 million; Jurassic Park 3D pulled in just over $4 million flat; and Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful conjured up an additional $3.05 million, pushing past the $220 million domestic mark in its seventh week of release.

Powered by a record-setting, $19-million Saturday (the biggest September day on record), Hotel Transylvania, Sony’s animated offering from voice star and executive producer Adam Sandler, is on track to ring up an estimated $43 million this weekend, topping the box office charts. Rian Johnson’s well received Looper has the second spot on lockdown, with around $21.2 million. End of Watch, Trouble with the Curve and House at the End of the Street round out the top five, with $8, $7.5 and $7.2 million, respectively.

Opening in only 335 theaters, the winning Pitch Perfect scored a per-screen average of over $15,500, good for around $5.2 million; it opens wide next weekend. Meanwhile, coming-of-age tale The Perks of Being a Wallflower, on only 102 screens, also flexed its initial platform muscle ($11,145 per screen), pulling in almost $1.2 million, good for 13th place. The 3-D presentation of Finding Nemo, Resident Evil: Retribution, The Master and Won’t Back Down slotted seventh through tenth, trailing the aforementioned Pitch Perfect. Apparently fanboy embrace has its limits, though; slipping out of the top 10 was Dredd, with an estimated $2.28 million for the weekend, and now only $10.87 million Stateside overall.

So No Strings Attached topped the weekend box office, pulling in $19.7 million and besting holdover The Green Hornet, which added another $17.7 million to its coffers, off only 47 percent from its debut weekend. Rounding out the top 10 were The Dilemma, with $9.1 million, (pushing its total to $32.7 million); The King’s Speech, with $7.9 million (for a total of $57.3 million); True Grit, with another $7.3 million (which is now the Coen brothers’ biggest hit, with $138 million); Black Swan, with $5.9 million (and a total of $83.2); Little Fockers, with $4.3 million (for a sigh-inducing total of $141.1 million); The Fighter, with $4.2 million (for a total of $72.7 million); Yogi Bear, with $3.8 million (for an $88.7 million cumulative haul); and Tron: Legacy with $3.6 million (and $163.2 million overall). In its ninth week, Tangled finally fell out of the top 10, though it’s grossed a fairly robust $186 million domestically.

Not surprisingly, Toy Story 3 ruled the box office during its opening weekend last week. Topping out at just over $110 million, the movie delivered the studio’s highest-grossing launch yet, supplanting the $70.5 million bow of 2004’s The Incredibles. It continued its commercial dominance this weekend, however, dropping an elbow-smash on Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups, which pulled in just under $41 million in its opening weekend. Toy Story 3‘s $59 million weekend haul easily surpassed that total, bringing its two-week Stateside gross to just under $227
million. Sandler and friends managed to best the week’s other big new studio bow, however — Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz‘s Knight and Day, which grossed $20.4 million over the weekend to bring its five-day premiere total to $27.7 million, according to studio estimates.

Rounding out the top 10 were the rebooted The Karate Kid, which fell off over 45 percent for the second straight week, pulling in $15.5 million, for a $135.7 million total; the rebooted The A-Team, with $6.2 million, for a cumulative $63 million haul; Forgetting Sarah Marshall spin-off Get Him to the Greek, with $3.1 million, for a $54.6 million total; Shrek Forever After, with $3.1 million, for a $230 million cumulative gross; Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, with $2.8 million, for a $86.2 million total; Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl’s Killers, with $1.9 million, for a $43.9 million total; and Jonah Hex, which dropped 70 percent in its sophomore frame, pulling in $1.6 million, for a $9.1 million Stateside total.

Notable in limited release, Alain Resnais’ Wild Grass averaged just over $7,800 on five screens, while Restrepo averaged just under $17,800 on a pair of screens, and Oliver Stone’s South of the Border grossed $21,545 on a single screen.

Uma Thurman’s Motherhood takes a licking in the United Kingdom, grossing under $200 during its opening weekend run at a single theater, as detailed in The Guardian by Amelia Hill. Still, does anyone really think this is actually a lasting qualitative indictment, even on the glossiest surface? Epic face-plants like this are always the result, in significant terms, of distributor/exhibitor/producer behind-the-scenes drama. Not saying that’s totally why Uwe Boll’s Bloodrayne tanked, no, but it sure was a pain in the ass for me to find a theater in North Carolina (I was traveling at the time) that was screening the film for review.

With another $13.3 million on Friday and an estimated $40 million-plus over the weekend, Avatar, going into its fourth week of release, will pass Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as the top domestic release. It’s now getting into heavily retrenched and/or typically disinterested audiences; I’ve been asked about it by bus drivers, deliverymen and, yes, a homeless guy.

Sure, I didn’t care about The Twilight Saga: New Moon‘s poster, but clearly a lot of other people did, based on its record-setting $72.7 million Friday gross, which bested The Dark Knight‘s single-day haul of $67.2 million, the previous record holder.

Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler’s R-rated Funny People topped the box office this past weekend, ringing up $22.7 million. Still, it was overall a down three-day frame for Hollywood compared to last year — down roughly 20 percent, in fact — when The Dark Knight continued its Sherman’s March through American filmgoers’ wallets, pulling in just over $42 million in its fourth weekend of release, en route to a whopping $533 million domestic haul.

Rounding out the weekend’s top 10 were Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with $17.9 million ($255.7 million overall); producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s G-Force, with $17.5 million ($66.9 million in two weeks of release); R-rated rom-com The Ugly Truth, with $13.2 million ($54.7 million overall); fellow new opener Aliens in the Attic, with just over $8 million; Orphan, with $7.5 million ($27.1 million cumulatively); Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, with $5.5 million ($182.1 million overall); a still-robust The Hangover, with $5.2 million ($255.9 million in sum); The Proposal, with $4.9 million and $149 million in seven weeks of release; and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which added another $4.7 million to its coffers, and now stands at just over $388 million domestically. Debuting just outside the top 10, meanwhile, was horror flick The Collector, the directorial debut of Feast co-writer Marcus Dunston, with $3.6 million on 1,325 screens.

Sacha Baron Cohen‘s Brüno topped the weekend box office, pulling in $30.6 million in its debut, including a $4 matinee ticket from my father, who apparently (somehow!) fell asleep, because he couldn’t remember any of the bits I queried him about when we spoke Sunday evening and he said he didn’t like the film. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen jostled for second place, with the former coming out on top; the third film in the animated series raked in $27.6 million, pushing its two-week total to $119.7 million. The clamorous Transformers sequel, meanwhile, rang up another $24.2 million in ticket sales, and has now grossed just over $339 million.

Rounding out the top 10 were Public Enemies ($13.8 million, $66.2 million overall); The Proposal ($10.6 million, $113.9 million overall); The Hangover ($9.9 million, $222.4 million cumulatively); weekend debut I Love You Beth Cooper ($4.9 million); Pixar’s Up ($4.7 million, $273.8 million in total); My Sister’s Keeper ($4.3 million, $35.9 million cumulatively); and The Taking of Pelham 123 ($1.5 million, $61.4 million overall).

The big screen adaptation of Dan Brown’s bestselling Angels & Demons, Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard’s follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, wrestled away the top spot at the weekend box office from Star Trek, with a haul just north of $46 million. J.J. Abrams’ aforementioned space adventure reboot, meanwhile, added $43 million to its $147.6 million two-week domestic tally. Placing third for the weekend was Wolverine, with $14.7 million, and now a hearty $151 million gate overall, Stateside.

Rounding out the top 10 were Matthew McConaughey‘s Ghosts of Girlfriends Past ($6.7 million, $39.8 million overall); Obsessed ($4.6 million, $62.6 million overall); 17 Again ($3.4 million, $58.4 overall); the 3-D animated Monsters vs. Aliens ($3.2 million, $190.7 cumulatively); The Soloist ($2.4 million, $27.5 million overall); Next Day Air ($2.2 million, $7.6 million overall); and the Disney nature documentary Earth ($1.7 million, $29.1 million overall). In its fourth week of limited release, meanwhile, James Toback’s Tyson documentary edged up to a $500,000 cumulative domestic take.

Domestic stalker flick Obsessed topped the weekend box office with an estimated $28.5 million, and while I’m sure Beyoncé Knowles’ ass might have had something to do with that haul, clearly Cool Whip enthusiasts were out in full effect as well.

Given a weekend free-and-clear of studio competition, Warner Bros. milked Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen for a $55.2 million debut, which would look great in either my bank account or yours, but has to be somewhat on the downside of fingers-crossed in-house projections. Either way, as Paul Dergarabedian probably pointed out in some talking-head quote, it’s the biggest ever opener for a R-rated film with giant blue wang, which has to at least give that planned big screen Smurfs flick some additional juice, and measure for creative license.

Placing second for the weekend was Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail with $8.5 million ($76.2 million overall); slotting third was Taken, with $7.3 million (an astonishing $118 million overall); notching fourth was Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire, from director Danny Boyle, with $6.8 million ($125.3 million overall); sliding to fifth was Kevin James’ Paul Blart: Mall Cop, with $4.1 million (and a sequel-baiting $133.6 million overall in eight weeks); slotting in sixth place was He’s Just Not That Into You, at $4 million ($84.6 million overall); placing seventh was the 3-D animated flick Coraline, with $3.3 million ($65.6 million overall); finishing in eighth was Confessions of a Shopaholic, with $3.1 million ($38.3 million overall); slotting ninth was something called Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience, with $2.8 million ($16.8 million overall); and 10th was Fired Up!, with $2.5 million ($13.2 million overall).

Marley & Me retained its hold on the top spot at the box office this past weekend, with an estimated $26.3 million haul, bringing its domestic total since Christmas to $106.7 million, and meaning that Jennifer Aniston probably drunk-dialed Brad Pitt to talk some shit.

Placing second was Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories with $20.5 million ($85.5 million overall); slotting third was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with $18.7 million ($79.3 million overall); notching fourth was Valkyrie, with $14.1 million ($60.8 million overall); sliding to fifth was Jim Carrey’s Yes Man, with $13.9 million ($79.5 million overall in three weeks); tumbling 23 percent to sixth place was Will Smith’s Seven Pounds, at $10.1 million ($60.1 million overall); placing seventh was the animated flick The Tale of Despereaux, with $6.9 million ($43.7 million overall); finishing in eighth was the Keanu Reeves-starring remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, with $5.1 million ($74.4 million overall); slotting ninth was Doubt, with $5 million (good for $18.7 million total in still-limited release); and 10th was Slumdog Millionaire, from director Danny Boyle, with $4.7 million ($28.7 million overall).

Quantum of Solace, with Daniel Craig returning as James Bond and va-voomish Olga Kurylenko satisfying the babe quotient in the
first direct sequel in the spy franchise, pulled in an estimated $68-plus million over opening weekend, nearly $30 million
more than its predecessor, 2006’s Casino Royale. The debut also easily bested the previous opening weekend record for a Bond flick, which was $47 million for 2002’s Die Another Day.

DreamWorks Animation’s Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, which debuted at
No. 1 the previous weekend, slipped to second place with just over $35 million in receipts,
raising its 10-day domestic total to $117 million. Rounding out the top 10 were the R-rated comedy Role Models ($11.2 million, $37.6 million overall); High School Musical 3: Senior Year ($5.7 million, $84.2 million cumulatively); Clint Eastwood’s Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie ($4.3 million, $27.6 million overall); Kevin Smith’s raunchy Zack and Miri Make a Porno ($3.1 million, $26.5 million overall); Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac’s Soul Men ($2.4 million, $9.4 million cumulatively); The Secret Life of Bees ($2.3 million, $33.6 million overall); the fifth installment in the Saw horror franchise ($1.8 million, $55.4 million overall); and the wince-inducing Beverly Hills Chihuahua ($1.6 million, $90.9 million overall). In limited release, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire opened to $360,000 at 10 theaters, and A Christmas Tale, also starring Quantum of Solace villain Mathieu Almaric, opened to $63,800 on seven screens.

Previous evidence of the crossover potential of the powerful Disney brand can be found in the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds
3-D concert release earlier this year; never playing in more than 687
theaters, the movie opened to $31 million, and finished with over $65
million domestically. Similarly relying upon its huge built-in
audience, High School Musical 3 broke the record for highest-grossing musical opening of all time, raking in $42 million on approximately 5,900 screens. That was more than enough to best the still-strong franchise staying power of Saw V, which, in keeping with Lionsgate’s historically ridiculous schemes to tamp down advance reviews, didn’t screen for critics, but still pulled in an estimated $30.1 million on 4,100 screens. In other wide new releases, cop drama Pride and Glory finished fifth for the weekend, with $6.3 million.

Rounding out the top 10 were videogame adaptation Max Payne ($7.8 million, $30 million overall); Beverly Hills Chihuahua ($6.9 million, $78.1 million overall); The Secret Life of Bees ($6.1 million, $19.3 million overall); Oliver Stone‘s W. ($5.1 million, $18.5 million overall); Eagle Eye ($5.1 million, $88 million overall); Body of Lies ($4.1 million, $30.9 million overall); and horror flick Quarantine ($2.6 million, $28.8 million overall).

In limited release, Clint Eastwood’s Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie, pulled in $489,000 at 15 venues; Rodrigo Garcia’s Passengers, starring Anne Hathaway, grossed just over $172,000 on 125 screens; writer Charlie Kaufman‘s directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York, grossed $172,000-plus on nine screens; Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom grossed $151,000-plus at five theaters; French import I’ve Loved You So Long, starring Kristin Scott Thomas, grossed $72,000 on nine screens; and striking, vampire-inflected Swedish coming-of-age tale Let the Right One In grossed $42,295 at four theaters.

Quarantine, which opened on Friday under a cloak of typical Screen Gems-ish anonymity after not screening in advance for critics, was unable to dethrone sign-of-the-apocalypse family film Beverly Hills Chihuahua from the top
spot at the box office over the weekend, grossing $14.2 million to the aforementioned film’s $17.5 million. Still, the low-budget horror flick of containment nonetheless finished with the top per-screen average of
the three-day frame, and outgrossed fellow new openers Body of Lies ($12.9 million), The Express ($4.6 million) and City of Ember, which finished outside the top 10 with only $3.1 million.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua has now grossed $52.5 million, which should be immediately refunded to American taxpayers, I think. Rounding out the top 10 were Eagle Eye ($10.9 million, $70.4 million overall); Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist ($6.4 million, $20.7 million overall); Richard Gere and Diane Lane’s adult weepie Nights in Rodanthe ($4.5 million, $32.3 million overall); ensemble western Appaloosa ($3.3 million, $10.9 million overall); Keira Knightley‘s expanding period piece The Duchess ($3.3 million, $5.6 million overall); and Kirk Cameron’s go-fix-your-marriage-fireman-drama Fireproof ($3.1 million, $16.9 million overall).

Shia LaBeouf will continue to make cheddar and mack on starlets, thank you very much. That’s what this weekend’s top gross of the very pedestrian thriller Eagle Eye confirmed. Following up on the $22.2 million debut of last spring’s Disturbia (we’re discounting the record-setting bows of Transformers and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, due to the influence of exploding robots and Harrison Ford), LaBeouf again made good as box office catnip, delivering $29.2 million for the DreamWorks/Paramount release, costarring Michelle Monaghan. Counter-programmed adult romance Nights in Rodanthe, starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane, finished a distant second for the three-day frame, with $13.4 million.

Rounding out the top 10 were Samuel L. Jackson’s bad-neighbor drama Lakeview Terrace, with $7 million ($25.7 million overall); Kirk Cameron’s Fireproof, with a debut haul of $6.8 million; Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers’ follow-up to the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men, with $6.2 million ($45.6 million overall); the animated Igor, with $5.4 million ($14.2 million overall); My Best Friend’s Girl, with $3.9 million ($14.6 million overall); Al Pacino and Robert De Niro’s Righteous Kill, with $3.7 million ($34.7 million overall); Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna, with $3.5 million in its debut frame; and Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys, with $3.1 million ($32.8 million overall).

Sliding out of the top 10 together in their 11th and second weeks of release, respectively, were Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight and David Koepp’s Ghost Town. In limited release, meanwhile, Fox Searchlight’s Choke grossed $1.3 million on 435 screens, while the Iraq-veterans-come-home road movie The Lucky Ones pulled in just over $183,000 in 10 less theaters.

Four new films ruled the box office this past weekend — each topping eight figures, which has to be some sort of record for September. Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers’ follow-up to the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men, earned the top spot, bringing in an estimated $19.1 million to edge out Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys, which slotted second with $17.4 million. Playing at almost 1,100 fewer screens than the latter film, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro’s Righteous Kill committed wallet robbery to the tune of $16.3 million. Diane English’s star-studded ensemble The Women, meanwhile, debuted to $10.1 million.

After that quartet of films, there was a steep drop-off. Ben Stiller’s R-rated ensemble war comedy Tropic Thunder, which my dad inexplicably hated, by way of explaining only that “it wasn’t funny,” placed fifth. The movie added an estimated $4.2 million to its total haul, which now stands at $103 million domestically. Rounding out the top 10 were Anna Faris’ The House Bunny, with $4.15 million ($42 million overall); Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight
, with $4.13 million ($517.8 million overall); Nicolas Cage’s Bangkok Dangerous, with $2.6 million ($12. 6 million overall); Don Cheadle’s very Bourne-flavored Traitor, with $2.1 million ($20.7 million overall); and Jason Statham’s Death Race, with $2 million and change ($33.2 million overall). Expected to take the top spot this coming weekend is the bad-neighbor drama Lakeview Terrace, with writer-director David Koepp’s Ghost Town, starring Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear, providing competition.

I’ve wondered if it actually exists, but Nicolas Cage’s Bangkok Dangerous proved its state of being — or at least extended a good ruse — by pulling in an estimated $7.8 million over the weekend, good enough to take the top spot at the box office during the weakest weekly frame of overall moviegoing in five years. No other new releases cracked the top 10.

Ben Stiller’s R-rated ensemble comedy Tropic Thunder held onto the second spot, adding an estimated $7.5 million to its coffers, which now stand at $96.8 million overall. Anna Faris’ The House Bunny placed third, with $5.9 million, and $37 million overall. Director Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight
finished fourth for the weekend, with $5.7 million, and its $512.2 million overall domestic gross pushed closer to Titanic‘s $600 million record. Rounding out the top 10 were Don Cheadle’s Traitor with $4.6 million ($17.7 million overall); Vin Diesel’s City of Men Babylon A.D., with $4 million ($17.2 million overall); Death Race, with $3.6 million ($29.8 million overall); the aptly named Disaster Movie, with $3.3 million ($10.9 million overall); the ABBA-inflected stage musical adaptation Mamma Mia!, with $2.7 million ($136.3 million overall); and, lastly, Pineapple Express, with $2.4 million ($84.2 million overall).

In limited release, Hamlet 2 grossed $819, bringing its haul to $4.4 million; Randall Miller’s ensemble wine dramedy Bottle Shock took in around $579,000, moving its total to $3.3 million; Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz’s Elegy added $482,000 to its five-week total, which now stands at $2.4 million; Kingsley’s wintry strangers-on-a-train mystery Transsiberian, meanwhile, grossed $385,000, and has taken in $1.4 million in just under two months; and the solid arthouse hit Brideshead Revisted added
$186,000 to its cumulative gross of
$6.2 million.

Ben Stiller’s R-rated ensemble comedy Tropic Thunder ended The Dark Knight‘s reign atop the domestic box office, pulling in $26 million over the weekend and $37 million overall since its Wednesday debut. Director Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins sequel banked another $16.8 million, bringing its total Stateside haul to $471.5 million, good for second place all time. Amongst other new entries, the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars grossed $15.5 million, good for third place, while Mirrors, starring Kiefer Sutherland, scared up $11.1 million, good for fourth place. Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona slotted 10th, with $3.7 million, while 3-D animated flick Fly Me to the Moon got swatted, placed 12th for the weekend, with $2 million.

Rounding out the top 10, Pineapple Express placed fifth, with $10 million ($62.9 million overall); Brendan Fraser’s third Mummy flick slotted sixth, with $8.6 million ($86.7 million overall); the ABBA-inflected stage musical adaptation Mamma Mia!
placed seventh, with $6.5 million ($116.4 million overall); The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 finished eighth, earning $5.9 million ($32.1 million overall); and Will Ferrell and John
C. Reilly’s Step Brothers
slotted ninth, with another $5 million ($90.9 million overall).

In limited release, Henry Poole is Here opened at over 525 venues and grossed $800,000; solid arthouse hit Brideshead Revisted added 150 theaters and pulled in $746,000, adding to its cumulative gross of $4.7 million; Randall Miller’s ensemble wine dramedy Bottle Shock added 69 theaters, and pulled in another $406,000; and Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz’s Elegy added $54,000 to its two-week total, holding steady at a half dozen screens.