The pirates out-plundered the gentlemen.

The derring-do of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl looted a swaggering $46.6 million at the weekend box office, doubling the booty taken in by The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which opened in second place with $23.1 million, according to final studio tallies Monday.

Johnny Depp's hey-ho-me-hearties adventure, inspired by Disney's theme park ride (with a wink to the Hollywood heroics of the good-old swashbuckling days of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn) has now hauled in $70.5 million since opening Wednesday.

Starring Depp as a charming rascal, Geoffrey Rush as the evil buccaneer, Orlando Bloom as the resident hunk and Keira Knightley as the beauteous maiden, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced PG-13 romp averaged $14,265 at 3,269 sites.

"Everybody had said pirate movies were cursed. The curse is officially over," Chuck Viane, Disney's distribution chief, pronounced to the Associated Press.

In contrast, Fox's oddball superheroes tale couldn't claim to be in anywhere near the league of other recent comic book-inspired flicks. Based on the critically acclaimed graphic novel, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen stars Sean Connery as intrepid explorer Allan Quatermain, who teams up with a bunch of other 19th century fictional types, including Dorian Gray and Tom Sawyer, to foil a warmonger. Also rated PG-13, The League only managed to muster $7,687 per screen at 3,002 sites.

The arrival of these two new movies wasn't good news for last week's topper, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Arnold Schwarzenegger's comeback rampage took a big tumble, down 56 percent into third place with $19.5 million. Its two-week gross is now $110.3 million.

In limited release there was good news for Michael and Mark Polish's bizarre Midwestern fable Northfork. Starring James Woods and Nick Nolte, the Paramount Classics release averaged $12,296 at just five screens for a promising $61,481 debut.

Doing decently in limited release was I Capture the Castle, a drama set in World War II Britain which averaged $6,496 at eight theaters for a total of $51,970.

Another art-house entry, Sony Pictures Classics' The Cuckoo, failed to cluck, er, click with moviegoers. The Russian movie about morality and mortality during WWII averaged $2,746 at six screens for a $16,473 debut.

Despite the falloff of T3, the swift decline of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (dropping 49 percent in its third week, down to sixth place with $7.1 million for an $81.5 million gross) and the major collapse of The Hulk, (dropping 55 percent from its previous week, down from fifth to ninth place with $3.7 million and a four-week tally of just $124.7 million), business was good enough to spark an upturn in the overall box office after four down weekends. The top 12 films grossed $135.7 million, 7 percent higher than last weekend, and 3 percent up on this time last year.

Helping boost the box office was the continued buoyant business of those intrepid fishy heroes of Finding Nemo. The Disney-Pixar 'toon only dropped one slot and 29 percent to fifth place in its seventh week of release, earning another $8.5 million to bring its current gross to $291.1 million.

Here is how the top 10 weekend movies stacked up, according to final studio figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, $46.6 million
2. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, $23.1 million
3. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, $19.5 million
4. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, $12 million
5. Finding Nemo, $8.5 million
6. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, $7.1 million
7. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, $4.3 million
8. 28 Days Later, $4.2 million
9. The Hulk, $3.7 million
10. The Italian Job, $2.7 million

(Originally published July 13, 2003 at 1:15 p.m. PT.)