The Twilight Saga sparkled to another #1 opening, as if you had any doubt; it was just a matter of how many millions Breaking Dawn would rake in, after Friday's $72 million opening day. But while all the excitement over weddings, butter-colored honeymoons, and monster vampire babies couldn't quite help BD eclipse New Moon (groan), it still nudged out Pirates of the Caribbean: The One with the Kraken for the #5 biggest opening of all time. That's forever, baby. Let's get our imprinting on in today's Weekend Receipts.
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What to say? The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 soared to the staggering Friday predicted by pretty much everyone: $72 million, to be precise, setting Bill Condon's first installment of the franchise swan song on a pace for a $140 million-plus weekend. The competition didn't stand a chance, with Happy Feet Two choking on Twilight's dust way back around the $6 million mark. Your Friday Box Office is here.
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While it didn't quite slay Jack and Jill at the box office -- a more resounding spanking might've restored my faith in humanity, but many, many folks still came out for the Adam Sandler twinsies comedy -- Tarsem's fantasy actioner Immortals exceeded expectations on its way to a surprising $32 million number one opening, the best ever debut for studio Relativity Media. Also: Puss in Boots and Tower Heist continued to slide down the ranks, with J. Edgar making a decent go of things to round out the Top 5. Dive in for your Weekend Receipts!
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Nothing could stop Immortals on Friday, when director Tarsem's violent, visionary exploration of mythological headwear soundly quashed the lower-intestinal abscess known as Jack and Jill for first place at the multiplex. J. Edgar, meanwhile, sneaked into the top five below a few persistent holdovers. Your Friday Box Office is here.
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Listen closely and you can hear the womp wooommp coming out of Universal HQ from miles away -- that's the refrain of the day as Tower Heist underperformed its way into second place behind the incredibly resilient Shrek spinoff Puss in Boots. Faring as well as could be reasonably expected in both films' shadows, find the latest Harold & Kumar installment. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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One can only imagine what scorchingly candid observations Universal boss Ron Meyer will soon make about his studio's Tower Heist, which is currently more than 30 percent off the pace originally projected for its opening-weekend grosses. America wasn't racing to the latest Harold & Kumar film either, choosing instead a family-friendlier 3-D confection that may yet emerge at the top of the box-office charts. Your Friday Box Office is here.
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Temperatures plunged this weekend -- but enough about the box-office heat foreseen for this week's new openings and even a few holdovers. Grab a snow shovel and let's get to digging ourselves out of the icy trap also known as Weekend Receipts.
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Barring a Texas Rangers-esque collapse today and tomorrow, America's favorite spun-off Spanish feline with a sword will scamper away with the weekend's box-office crown: Puss in Boots easily knocked off Paranormal Activity 3, which slid some 70 percent off last Friday's blistering pace. In other news, Justin Timberlake and Johnny Depp opened soft and Anonymous had a Bard time (sorry) on around 250 screens. Your Friday Box Office is here.
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Last we heard from the team behind The Worst Movie EVER!, filmmaker Glenn Berggoetz was receiving death threats as the movie's historically bad box-office returns crept ever-so-incrementally higher. More than a month later, firmly ensconced in three-digit territory and finding new audiences seemingly every week, has WME!'s profile emerged at last from the freezing shadow of box-office futility? Hint: No.
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The Disney vault opened its hefty doors, unleashed a 3-D fury of Jeremy Irons's draggiest performance, and stormed the box office this weekend with The Lion King 3D's downright impressive opening tally. I hope this means we'll be hearing about 3-D re-releases of (forgive me) better Disney movies soon. Give me Aladdin, 101 Dalmatians, and The Rescuers back, please. We have to get children to listen to Bob Newhart's classic drollness somehow! I don't think The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart is available on iTunes yet.
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Hark, a new film hath unseated The Help for the #1 crown! All it took was Steven Soderbergh's hypochondria-inducing Contagion, a picture that will surely also boost worldwide sales of Purell during flu season. And while there's no love lost in seeing last week's Shark Night 3D and Apollo 18 drop precipitously down in the ranks, the heartstrings pull for Warrior, a finely acted MMA film that only got a fraction of the theater count of its competitors, and performed accordingly. But! At least it fared better than Bucky Larson...
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Don't let the PG-13s fool you: Adults have taken over the box office. For the fifth consecutive week, a sophisticated film more reliant on story, casting and filmmaking than it is on VFX bloat, franchise bulk and/or superhero ardor has claimed the No. 1 slot. Meanwhile, the late-summer phenomenon that it supplanted came in second, and you don't even want to know where the puerile Bucky Larson wound up. (Or maybe you do. Hint: Not in the top 10!) This is your Friday Box Office.
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As if there was any doubt, we officially have a phenomenon on our hands: The Help has held fast for its third consecutive week at the top of the box-office charts, vanquishing a trio of new competitors and further burnishing its credentials for the rapidly approaching awards season. This is getting serious. Your four-day holiday Weekend Receipts are here.
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How appropriate: Your Labor Day holiday is on track to be owned by The Help, a movie about domestic workers. The female-driven, '60s-set lit adaptation has been dominating the charts for three weekends in a row, plowing through the end-of-summer competition left and right, and you know what? Not even sharks and astronauts and spies can slow down the Help train. The pic's on track for The Blind Side-esque awards buzz and an estimated $121M cume by the end of the four-day weekend. Is it crazy to imagine franchise potential here? Drop your The Help 2 sequel pitches below on your way to those Labor Day BBQs!
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New Yorkers may have been left unimpressed by the magnitude of Hurricane Irene (not so much folks in the less fortunate cities in her path, let's remember), but the much-hyped weather event left an indubitable mark elsewhere: all the way across the country in sunny Hollywood, where studio execs were likely cursing the name "Irene" as the box office tallies rolled in. With hundreds of theaters shut down across the East Coast due to hurricane panic and ticket sale losses estimated at $25 million, how much did new releases Colombiana, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and Our Idiot Brother feel the impact of Irene?
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