Was Katherine Heigl likable enough to defriend dethrone The Social Network? Was Secretariat the next Blind Side? Was Ryan Reynolds able to dig out Buried?
The weekend box-office results:
The Social Network reigned a second weekend with $15.5 million, per estimates. The $40 million Facebook movie is now at $46.1 million overall.
Heigl's and Josh Duhamel's baby-on-board romantic-comedy, Life As We Know It, settled for second, with a $14.6 million debut, bigger than recent efforts from Jennifer Aniston and the American Idol-bound Jennifer Lopez, if slightly smaller than Heigl's own summer entry, Killers.
Exhibitor Relations' Jeff Bock called the take "decent," especially considering its weak reviews, and dismissed the notion that Heigl, who has openly debated whether her mouth has done her more harm than good, is damaged goods.
"Compared to Drew Barrymore [right now], she's a huge star," Bock said today.
In third place, the horse-loving Secretariat ($12.6 million) looked nothing at all like the phenom that was last fall's football-fortified The Blind Side, Diane Lane's Oscar buzz aside.
In a now-common storyline, 3-D prices didn't make for 3-D box office as Wes Craven's new horror tale, My Soul to Take, put up a 1-D debut: fifth place, $6.9 million.
The psych-ward comedy-drama It's Kind of a Funny Story ($2 million) was huge compared to its writing-directing team's previous movies (including Ryan Gosling's Half Nelson), but still wasn't Top 10 material.
In limited release, the John Lennon biopic, Nowhere Boy ($56,065 at four theaters), made the most of a weekend marked by celebrations for the late Beatle's 70th birthday. Minus the tie-in hook, the Robert De Niro-Edward Norton drama Stone ($73,000 at six theaters) also got off to a solid start.
Reynolds' low-budget Buried moved out onto 92 theaters, but scored only $200,000. After three weekends, it's at a truly scary $489,344.
Overall, it's been a lousy Halloween season for chillers and thrillers. The weak debut for the remake of the cult classic I Spit on Your Grave ($33,000 at 12 theaters) was yet another example of horror-shunning.
Here's a complete look at the weekend's top-grossing films, per Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- The Social Network, $15.5 million
- Life As We Know It, $14.6 million
- Secretariat, $12.6 million
- Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, $7 million
- My Soul to Take, $6.9 million
- The Town, $6.4 million
- Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, $4.6 million
- Easy A, $4.2 million
- Case 39, $2.6 million
- You Again, $2.5 million
(Originally published Oct. 10, 2010 at 11:07 a.m. PT)