Three weekends in a row for the top film. This is not something I have seen for awhile now. The last film to three-peat at the top was Alice in Wonderland back in March. now we have Christopher Nolan's incredible Inception. The straight-forward mind-bender is a crowd pleaser that also has a brain behind it. It is that wonderful combination of visceral thrills backed with an intelligence that you do not see often enough in summer films of recent vintage. How long will it be able to hold on? Probably not much longer, this was likely its last weekend at number one, but I still expect it to carry on for a few more weeks as it adds to its tally. I think it has a shot at reaching $300 million. What say you?Coming in second place is one the weekend's three new entries, Dinner for Schmucks. To be certain, the word "schmucks" never appears in the movie, instead they use the more common "idiots." The movie is very funny, there is no doubt about that. It is utterly ridiculous and is an idea that just does not feel real. however, these guys make it work. The pairing of Paul Rudd and Steve Carrell is a fantastic one. It is the sort of film that one miscast character could have tumbled this house of cards. Definitely see it if you like to laugh.
Third place is last week's number two movie, Salt. The Angelina Jolie action/thriller is a solid entry in the summer action genre. It is not the best but it does have fun with genre conventions. While being predictable, it still had enough surprises to keep me guessing, Yes, I realize that makes little sense, but there you go. It is doing decent numbers in its second week, although I suspect a steep decline is ahead, especially when The Expendables arrive to deliver some action competition.
Despicable Me finished in fourth place and is closing in on $200 million. The animated film has to be considered something of a surprise success, I know I wasn't expecting it to get near this amount, at least not so soon. It certainly is laugh out loud funny and occasionally achingly sweet and that definitely makes for a crowd pleasing movie
The next two spots are held by the other two wide releases and they were in a bit of a horse race to see which would come out on top. Charlie St. Cloud finished fifth just a little bit ahead of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Neither film really lit up the box office and neither is likely to stick around for very long.
Next week will see the arrival of a couple new films looking for a piece of the pie. First is the buddy cop comedy The Other Guys which sees the pair of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg working in the shadow of Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson. Also arriving nation wide is Step Up 3D, which I could potentially see myself seeing. I did see the second film and it wasn't that bad.
Three movies dropped off the list this week: Ramona and Beezus (11), The Last Airbender (13), and Predators (14).
| This Week | Last Week | Title | Wknd Gross | Overall | Week in release |
| 1 | 1 | Inception | $27,485,245 | $193,313,741 | 3 |
| 2 | N | Dinner for Schmucks | $23,527,839 | $23,527,839 | 1 |
| 3 | 2 | Salt | $19,471,355 | $71,033,711 | 2 |
| 4 | 3 | Despicable Me | $15,524,230 | $190,330,425 | 4 |
| 5 | N | Charlie St. Cloud | $12,381,585 | $12,381,585 | 1 |
| 6 | N | Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore | $12,279,363 | $12,279,363 | 1 |
| 7 | 5 | Toy Story 3 | $5,122,907 | $389,761,491 | 7 |
| 8 | 7 | Grown Ups | $4,548,144 | $150,761,385 | 6 |
| 9 | 4 | The Sorcerer's Apprentice | $4,465,524 | $52,026,528 | 3 |
| 10 | 8 | Eclipse | $4,014,953 | $288,199,907 | 5 |
Box Office Predictions Recap
Well, you win some and you lose some. I started off so well with the top three films on both sides of the table. I was pretty pleased with how my gross predictions panned out. On the other hand, I am a little disappointed with how the placements turned out. I thought for sure that Cats & Dogs would be a little bit stronger, especially with the family draw. I definitely thought it would best the Zac Efron drama, but I guess I was wrong. Still, the overall numbers make feel more and more like the end of summer is upon us.
Here is how the field matched up:
| Actual | Prediction | Title | Wknd Gross | Prediction |
| 1 | 1 | Inception | $27,485,245 | $28 million |
| 2 | 2 | Dinner for Schmucks | $23,527,839 | $25 million |
| 3 | 3 | Salt | $19,471,355 | $21 million |
| 6 | 4 | Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore | $12,279,363 | $15 million |
| 4 | 5 | Despicable Me | $15,524,230 | $12 million |
| 5 | 6 | Charlie St. Cloud | $12,381,585 | $9 million |
| 7 | 7 | Toy Story 3 | $5,122,907 | $7 million |
| 9 | 8 | The Sorcerer's Apprentice | $4,465,524 | $5 million |
| 8 | 9 | Grown Ups | $4,548,144 | $4 million |
| 12 | 10 | The Kids are All Right | $3,525,585 | $3 million |
Article first published as Box Office Update 7/30-8/1: Inception Continues Warping Minds on Blogcritics.
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