Paul Blart Wins Weekend Box Office—Again

For the second weekend in a row, the box office belonged to Paul Blart: Mall Cop. This week the Kevin James family-friendly vehicle edged out threequel Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, to finish with a $21.5 million three-day total compared to the vampire’s $20.7 million in its debut weekend.

Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino finished the weekend in third place with $16 million and is now just a growl or two away from the $100 million mark with its total gross reaching $97.6 million. The four and five spots belonged to Hotel for Dogs ($12.4 million) and Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire ($10.6 million), with the latter scoring its highest grossing weekend to date, benefiting from its 10 Oscar nominations and a significant increase in theaters.

The only other new movie to break the top 10 was Inkheart, the fantasy adaptation directed by Iain Softley and starring Brendan Fraser, Helen Mirren, Paul Bettany and Andy Serkis, coming in at number seven with $7.72 million.

This Friday sees another roster of scatter shot January releases, including horror flick The Uninvited, directed by brothers Charles and Thomas Guard and starring Elizabeth Banks, Emily Browning, Arielle Kebbel and David Strathairn; Jonas Elmer’s seemingly unadvertised New in Town starring Renée Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr. and J.K. Simmons; and Taken, the latest action movie from District B13 director Pierre Morel, written by Luc Besson and starring Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Katie Cassidy and Liam Neeson. As always, check back here next week at the Top of the Box Office report to see who came out victorious.