One movie stayed strong. One movie opened strong. One movie took down Transformers: Dark of the Moon to rule over all others.
And then there was Glee.
The TV show's 3-D concert movie not only failed to meet modest expectations—it failed to crack the box-office weekend's Top 10.
The Glee movie finished in 11th place with a $5.7 million Friday-Sunday gross, per estimates. The performance wasn't exactly a disaster; the film, culled from footage of this summer's tour, cost a mere $9 million.
Still, something was off. Glee behaved more like a throwback to the days when concert movies didn't do much, and less like a contemporary blockbuster à la Justin Bieber and Hannah Montana movies.
Or, to put it another way: It took Glee to make the Jonas Brothers look really big in 3-D.
Elsewhere, Rise of the Planet of the Apes held on to the top spot, and crossed the $100 million mark domestically, while The Help looked like the best-seller it's been on Kindles, grossing $35 million since opening Wednesday.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 upped its domestic gross to $357 million to become the year's top-grossing film—domestically, that is. With nearly $1.2 billion in the bank overall, the film had already established itself as the year's No. 1 worldwide hit.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the year's deposed domestic champ, exited the Top 10 after six monster weekends, and a $347.2 million take. (Worldwide, it's at $1.1 billion and counting.)
Two comedies dropped out of the Top 10: Jennifer Aniston's Horrible Bosses, which lasted five weekends and came away with $110 million domestically; and, Justin Timberlake's and Mila Kunis' Friends With Benefits, which scored $53 million domestically, but proved unable to top the similarly themed No Strings Attached.
Final Destination 5, one of the weekend's other new major releases, finished in the upper echelon of Final Destination movies, while 30 Minutes or Less, another newbie, did OK for an R-rated comedy about bombs, pizza and bank robbery.
And, yes, it's strange, but it's true: The Smurfs is nearing a $250 million worldwide gross.
Here's a complete look at the weekend's top-grossing films, per Friday-Sunday estimates as compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes, $27.5 million
- The Help, $25.5 million
- Final Destination 5, $18.4 million
- The Smurfs, $13.5 million
- 30 Minutes or Less, $13 million
- Cowboys & Aliens, $7.6 million
- Captain America: The First Avenger, $7.1 million
- Crazy, Stupid, Love, $6.9 million
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, $6.88 million
- The Change-Up, $6.2 million