American Gangster raided Bee Movie.

The Denzel Washington-Russell Crowe drug-lord epic scored $43.6 million at the weekend box office, per final studio figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations Monday, denying Jerry Seinfeld's new CGI comedy bragging rights, and possibly some customers.

Bee Movie settled for second place with $38 million.

"The one-two punch provided by Russell and Denzel was able to sting Seinfeld," said Exhibitor Relations' Jeff Bock, unable to resist dropping an oh-so-tempting bee analogy. "All the young men turned out for it."

As did their friends and relations. According to Nikki Rocco, head of domestic distribution for Universal, the studio behind American Gangster, the movie brought out the over-30 crowd, and, overall, skewed slightly more female than male. In short, said Rocco: "This one really got a lot of attention."

Still, Bee Movie lived up to Bock's and others' projections for a big, but not blockbuster-big debut. The surprise was the years-in-the-making American Gangster, which scored the ninth-biggest opening for an R-rated movie in Hollywood history, per Box Office Mojo. It accounted for about 36 percent of weekend business, while doing its bidding on nearly 1,000 fewer screens than the heavily, heavily promoted Bee Movie.

Bock said he expects American Gangster to continue to loom large in the coming weeks—apparently, the 157-minute drama about heroin distribution won't face a lot of competition from the pending slate of holiday films.

But the family-friendly Bee Movie will. Face a lot of competition, that is. Chief among its rivals will be Vince Vaughn's Fred Claus, opening Nov. 9.

Bock, for one, is not overly optimistic about the long-term prospects for Seinfeld's first major big-screen vehicle.

"CGI animation has kind of reached the saturation point. It has to be something different," Bock said, noting that in the case of Bee Movie: "We've seen bug animation before."

Bock predicted Bee Movie would end up about as big Over the Hedge, an example of talking-animal animation, that was only sort of big in 2006, grossing $155 million domestically. According to reports, Bee Movie cost $150 million to produce.

Seinfeld cowrote, produced and voiced Bee Movie's main bee. He also expended who-knows-how-much jet fuel to promote his baby from talk show to talk show. And, like a man who remembers Seinfeld wasn't a hit from day one, he isn't letting up yet. On Monday, he's scheduled to get back to work—and sit down with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show.

Elsewhere at the weekend box office:

• Saw IV (third place, $10.3 million) and Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? (ninth place, $2.6 million) each passed the $50 million mark overall.
• Dan in Real Life (fourth place, $7.9 million; $22.7 million overall) discovered the real world is a scary place for movies about people who are just people.
• The new, John Cusack-adopts-a-kid drama, Martian Child (seventh place, $3.4 million), wasn't embraced by ticket buyers.
• A documentary about the Clash's late leader, Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, fired up the art-house crowd, taking in $20,880 at two theaters. Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows Your Dead stayed hot with $370,542 at 43 theaters.
• Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited ($1.2 million; $8 million overall) just isn't going anywhere. It looks like it'll be Anderson's smallest grossing movie since his 1996 Bottle Rocket debut.

Overall, American Gangster and Bee Movie helped Hollywood post its first big weekend since the summer, reversing a six-week trend of diminishing returns when compared to last year.

Here's a rundown of the top 10 films based on Friday-Sunday figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. American Gangster, $43.6 million
2. Bee Movie, $38 million
3. Saw IV, $10.3 million
4. Dan in Real Life, $7.9 million
5. The Game Plan, $3.9 million
6. 30 Days of Night, $3.7 million
7. Martian Child, $3.4 million
8. Michael Clayton, $2.8 million
9. Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?, $2.6 million
10. Gone Baby Gone, $2.2 million

(Originally published Nov. 4, 2007 at 1:01 p.m. PT.)