Action movie Max Payne, starring Mark Wahlberg, topped the US box office with takings of $18m (£10.2m), beating Oliver

Stone’s political movie W.
W, which is based on President George W Bush and stars Josh Brolin, opened in fourth place after taking $10.6m (£6m) in its

first weekend.
Family comedy Beverly Hills Chihuahua was number two, followed by adventure drama The Secret Life of Bees.
Rounding off the top five was Shia LaBeouf’s Eagle Eye.
Presidential election
Stone’s last movie, World Trade Center, debuted with takings of $18.7m (£10.7m).

NORTH AMERICA BOX OFFICE
1. Max Payne - $18m
2. Beverly Hills Chihuahua - $11.2m
3. The Secret Life of Bees - $11.1m
4. W - $10.6m
5. Eagle Eye - $7.3m
6. Body of Lies - $6.9m
7. Quarantine - $6.3m
8. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist - $3.9m
9. Sex Drive - $3.6m
10. Nights in Rodanthe - $2.7m
However, the 2006 film was shown in nearly 3,000 cinemas, about 900 more than W.

“For me, an Oliver Stone film about George Bush doesn’t necessarily scream big box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, from box.
“A film like this is very tough to gauge, but this is exactly what I thought it would do.”
The decision was made to release the movie two weeks before the US presidential election, said Steve Rothenberg, from

distribution firm Lionsgate.
“We felt it was very important to release the film after the presidential debates but before the election.”

Rider redo got off to a slow start last night, scoring only 7.3 million viewers, Nielsen Media Research estimates said.
On a Wednesday night last September, the same network’s Bionic Woman redo started off with 13.9 million viewers—and Nielsen watchers should remember how that story ended. (Recap: Badly, it ended badly.)
In the 8 p.m. time slot, Knight Rider ran third in viewers, behind ABC’s Ted McGinley-shunning Dancing With the Stars (15.6 million) and Fox’s Bones (9.6 million). The show likewise ran third among 18- to 49-year-olds.
The car-powered series did perform better among men ages 18-49 and 18-34. But it struck out with teenagers who treated the 26-year-old property as if it were a CBS comedy about middle-aged divorcees.
Knight Rider even suffered in comparison to itself, or rather to the TV movie that relaunched the franchise last February. That show finished the week in the top 10 with 12.7 million viewers.
If there was a bright side to Knight Rider’s dark night, it was that the show wasn’t called Gary Unmarried (6.8 million).
The new Jay Mohr sitcom, one of the aforementioned CBS shows about middle-aged divorcees, tanked, right alongside its comedy-block companion, The New Adventures of Old Christine (6.7 million), which presumably longed for its old Monday-night time slot.
Elsewhere, a speech by President Bush messed with the 9 p.m. hour, at least in the time zones where the address was aired in prime time. Basically, though, CBS ruled the hour with Criminal Minds (15.1 million).

The fall box office sure fell all right.

After a $4 billion-grossing summer, Hollywood slogged through its worst weekend of the year, per studio estimates compiled today by Exhibitor Relations.
The weekend was distinguished, if not defined, by Bangkok Dangerous, the new Nicolas Cage action movie, which finished first with the lowest gross for a No. 1 movie in five years ($7.8 million).
If estimates hold, the $45 million Bangkok Dangerous will barely have had enough fire power to outgross the debuts of 2008 bombs such as Mad Money ($7.7 million) and Space Chimps ($7.2 million).
Adding insult to injury, the movie, a remake of the 1999 Thai shoot-’em’-up of the same name, goes down as Hollywood’s smallest No. 1 movie since David Spade’s Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star debuted with $6.6 million over the same weekend in 2003.
For Cage, Bangkok Dangerous is another box-office miss in a hit-and-miss career—a movie that failed to match his last September opener: the viral-video-celebrated Wicker Man, which, bear suit, bees and all, opened with $9.6 million over Labor Day weekend in 2006.
For those keeping score in Hollywood, the holiday movie season begins after only eight more potentially long weekends.

The last $100 million is the hardest.
The Dark Knight yesterday became only the second movie in Hollywood history to gross $500 million or more. It now stands within $100 million of toppling Titanic as the biggest-ever film at the domestic box office.
Elsewhere, Tropic Thunder made it three wins in a row at the weekend box office, with a $14.3 million four-day, holiday take, per studio estimates today from Exhibitor Relations.
The Dark Knight’s estimated Sunday gross of $3.3 million put the Batman movie over the $500 million mark only 45 days into its release, per Box Office Mojo stats.
For the Friday-Monday, Labor Day weekend, the Christopher Nolan film made $11 million. Its overall take now stands at $504.7 million.
Titanic rules the all-time box-office chart with a domestic gross of $601 million.
While The Dark Knight has made its money in lightning-fast time, it is not expected to have enough left in the tank to get to $600 million.
Not that $500 million won’t get you pretty far.

Drilling down the box-office standings:
# Tropic Thunder has now been the No. 1 weekend movie for more weeks (three) than any film besides The Dark Knight (four).
# Despite its run at the top spot, the $90 million-ish comedy has yet to make back its budget. As of today, it’s made an estimated $86.6 million overall.
# Dollar for dollar, Pineapple Express (ninth place, $3.5 million Friday-Sunday; $4.5 million Friday-Monday) remains the R-rated comedy hit of the summer. Made for $27 million, it’s made $80.9 million at the box office.
# The $25 million House Bunny  (fourth place, $8.3 million Friday-Sunday; $10.5 million Friday-Monday) held up well in its second weekend, and brought its cumulative total to $30 million.
# The spoof movie is sputtering. Disaster Movie (seventh place) earned $6.2 million Friday-Sunday, well behind this year’s Superhero Movie ($9.5 million) and Meet the Spartans ($18.5 million).
# Vin Diesel’s box-office career is sputtering, too. Yes, his Babylon A.D. ($9.6 million Friday-Sunday; $12 million Friday-Monday) finished a close second to Tropic Thunder, but its debut was far smaller than that of The Pacifier ($30.6 million) and The Chronicles of Riddick ($24.3 million), to name his two most recent wide releases.
# The new Steve Martin-hatched spy movie, Traitor (fifth place), starring Don Cheadle, actually outgrossed Tropic Thunder, theater for theater. It earned $7.9 million from Friday-Sunday, and $10 million from Friday-Monday.
# In its second weekend, Rainn Wilson’s The Rocker played in more theaters than The Dark Knight, something you’d never know by looking at the numbers: $1 million Friday-Sunday; $1.3 million Friday-Monday.
# Hamlet 2’s another comedy unable to crack the Top 10. In its second weekend, the critically praised satire broke wide…and flopped: $1.7 million Friday-Sunday; $2.1 million Friday-Monday.
# Debuting at 2,123 theaters, the new comedy College ($2.1 million Friday-Sunday; $2.6 million Friday-Monday) flopped harder.
# The Japanese spaghetti Western Sukiyaki Western Django killed. At one theater, it made $10,236 Friday-Sunday ($14,000 Friday-Monday) for the weekend’s highest per-screen average.
# Keifer Sutherland’s Mirrors ($2.7 million Friday-Sunday; $3.5 million Friday-Monday; $25.5 million overall) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars ($2.7 million Friday-Sunday; $3.5 million Friday-Monday; $30.4 million overall) both fell out of the Top 10 after two weekends.
# The first Mummy movie cost about $80 million, and made $155.4 million. The third one, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor ($2.6 million Friday-Sunday; $3.5 milion Friday-Monday) cost about $145 million, and has made $98.7 million so far.

Here’s a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
# Tropic Thunder, $11.5 million
# Babylon A.D., $9.6 million
# The Dark Knight, $8.6 million
# The House Bunny, $8.3 million
# Traitor, $7.9 million
# Death Race, $6.3 million
# Disaster Movie, $6.2 million
# Mamma Mia! $4.4 million
# Pineapple Express, $3.5 million
# Vicky Cristina Barcelona, $2.8 million

It was an awesome film. I have my own sort of rating system. I call it the watch system. The more times I look at my watch, the worse the movie. Titanic was a five-watch movie. Terrible, in my opinion. Dark Knight was a one-watch movie. Lots of action, twists and turns.
“Heath Ledger owned his part as The Joker, just as Christian Bale now owns Batman. (Director) Christopher Nolan does a wonderful job keeping true to the Batman story.
“Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes was a good choice. Aaron Eckhart fit the bill as District Attorney Harvey Dent/Two Face. There’s a very nice touch at the end for the tribute of Heath Ledger and Comway Wickliffe, one of the stuntmen on the film. If I get a chance, I may go see it again.

The release of weekend actuals resulted in a decline for Hancock, which was estimated to have grossed $66 million over the July 4th weekend and instead brought in $62.6 million.

Despite the drop, Hancock is still the biggest July 4th opening for Will Smith and it’s also his eighth straight #1 opening.

WALL-E finished in second place and was able to drop a respectable 48% in its second weekend. Meanwhile, Wanted was not able to maintain a strong portion of its audience in its second week and it fell 61% over the holiday weekend.

After expanding wide, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl finished in 8th place with an actual gross of $3.3 million, which marked a $300,000 decrease from where estimates had placed it.

The Love Guru remained in 11th place, behind You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, after actual numbers were released.

Title Weekend Location Avg. Distributor Total Gross Locations Weeks
Wide
1 Hancock $62,603,879 — $15,789 Sony $103,877,446 3,965 0 1

2 WALL-E $32,509,203 -48% $8,144 Disney $127,196,028 3,992 0 2

3 Wanted $20,050,070 -61% $6,295 Universal $90,186,395 3,185 +10
2

4 Get Smart $11,109,408 -45% $3,113 Warner Bros. $98,100,652
3,108 0 3

5 Kung Fu Panda $7,318,635 -37% $2,187 Paramount $193,221,867
3,347 -323 5

6 The Incredible Hulk $4,899,280 -49% $1,610 Universal $124,841,395
3,043 +153 4

7 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull $3,774,807 -27%
$1,722 Universal $306,428,521 2,192 -364 7

8 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl $3,296,929 +2,981% $1,789
Picturehouse $5,822,544 1,843 +90 3

9 Sex and the City $2,382,438 -37% $1,869 New Line $144,891,325 1,275 -126 6

10 You Don’t Mess With the Zohan $1,981,251 -38% $1,145 Sony $94,773,156
1,731 0 5

11 The Love Guru $1,806,545 -66% $682 Paramount $29,427,850
2,648 -364 3

12 Iron Man $1,459,613 -35% $1,472 Paramount $311,708,133
1,019 -360 10

13 The Happening $1,438,889 -63% $802 Fox $62,053,729 1,795 -8 4

Title Weekend Location Avg. Distributor Total Gross Locations
Weeks