Inception Takes Crown Over Busy Weekend

The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan's latest film, Inception, had a stellar opening weekend, taking in $60.4 million over its first three days.  The Leonardo DiCaprio-starring film was buoyed by an aggressive marketing campaign that revealed stunning imagery while holding back relevant plot details.  Audiences were obviously intrigued, and critical response was good, leading to an excellent opening weekend for the big budget movie.  Inception also represents a career-high opening weekend for DiCaprio.

Second place went to last weekend's #1 film, the family-friendly Despicable Me.  Dropping a modest 42%, the film took in $32.7 million, bringing its total so far to $118.3 million after two weeks in release.

Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice opened weakly, with $17.3 million.  After opening on Wednesday, the film's gross to date is just over $24 million.  This was strong enough for a third place finish, but had to be a disappointment for the studio and producer Jerry Bruckheimer as the film is budgeted at an estimated $150 million.  Disney will be relying on international grosses to get this film into the black.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse fell another 57%, landing in fourth place with $13.5 million.  The third film in the Twilight saga has now grossed $265 million, and is rapidly chasing down New Moon on its way to being the highest grossing film in the series so far.

Finally, fifth place went to Pixar's Toy Story 3.  The third film in the trilogy brought in another $11.7 million in its 5th weekend for $362.7 million in domestic grosses to date.