Inception Continues To Kick The Competition At The Box Office

Moviegoers deserve a hand. Dinner for Schmucks seemed ripe to seize the top spot at the box office, but for a third straight week smart filmmaking trumped dumb filmmaking and Inception once again wins out with a $27.5 million haul. Schmucks finished in second with $23.3 million, which for a PG-13 comedy with a budget of $60 million is respectable, just not overwhelming.

Angelina Jolie’s spy game thriller Salt rounded out the top three with $19.2 million. Meanwhile,  Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and the Zac Efron melodrama Charlie St. Cloud both had disappointing opening weekends, finishing in fifth and sixth respectively.

Here’s how the Top 10 stacked up (Via Box Office Mojo):

1. Inception - $27. 5 million

2. Dinner for Schmucks – $23. 3 million

3. Salt – $19.2 million

4. Despicable Me – $15.5 million

5. Cats and Dogs – $12.5 million

6. Charlie St. Cloud – $12.1 million

7. Toy Story 3 – $5 million

8. Grown Ups – $4.5 million

9. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – $4.3 million

10. Twilight: Eclipse – $3.9 million

Despicable Me has to be the surprise hit of the summer; it should surpass the $200 million mark after next weekend. Inception will do the same and its worldwide gross of $363 million will do wonders for Christopher Nolan’s reputation as a bankable director.

Slim pickings this week at theaters as Step Up 3D, The Other Guys and Middle Men all open to little fanfare. Although, Middle Men is about the rise of internet porn, so I’ll definitely be checking it out, for research purposes only.