Rank
Title
Weekend
Gross
Cumulative
Gross
Weeks in Release
1

The Covenant
$9,000,000

$9,000,000
1
2

Hollywoodland
$6,008,000

$6,008,000
1
3

Invincible

$5,784,000

$45,654,000
3
4

The Protector
$5,032,000

$5,032,000
1
5

Crank
$4,800,000

$19,859,000
2
6

The Illusionist
$4,639,000

$18,089,000
4
7

Little Miss Sunshine

$4,425,000

$41,646,000
7
8

Wicker Man
$4,120,000
$17,490,000
2
9

Talladega Nights
$3,000,000
$142,181,000
6
10

Barnyard
$2,586,000
$66,885,000
6

It looks like you stayed home from the movies this weekend – the box office was the shittiest its been in three years. The blame rests on the post-Labor Day weekend, when people are busy getting ready for school and stuff, as well as a bunch of fairly crummy new movies.

Leading the crummy pack is Screen Gem’s latest, The Covenant. They don’t show these films to critics, and it looks like their campaign works – all of these Screen Gems movies open (comparatively) strongly. Coming in at number two is Ben Affleck’s career revival, especially after winning Best Actor (!) at the Venice Film Festival, the “should have been a lot better” Hollywoodland.

Marky Mark hangs in the top five with his football movie, while Tony Jaa’s latest, chopped beyond all recognition by the Weinstein Company, comes in just behind him on a thousand fewer screens. Rounding out the top five is the legitimately fun Crank, showing a disappointingly normal to modestly high drop off in its second weekend. Still, the film is profitable.

The big story of the summer may be that Pirates finally made it to a billion dollars total, but the second biggest has to be Little Miss Sunshine, the most expensive pick up at Sundance ever. The movie has gone on to prove its value and to make those of us who look at the box office and despair feel a little bit better. It’s an actual good movie that’s making a lot of money! Not as good is Neil LaBute’s The Wicker Man, which is on the fast track out of the top ten, but which has already made more money than the rest of his films, all of which were much, much better.

Next week sees a whole crop of newcomers, including the fairly bad Rock-starrer Gridiron Gang, the fairly bad Zach Braff starrer The Last Kiss, the fairly excellent De Palma directed The Black Dahlia and Artie Lange’s Beer League, hoping desperately to not get destroyed the way Broken Lizard’s Beerfest did.