Weekend Box Office: July 23-25

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Inception - $43.5 million

2.  Salt - $36.5 million

3.  Despicable Me - $24.1 million

4.  The Sorcerer's Apprentice - $9.6 million

5.  Toy Story 3 - $9 million

6.  Ramona & Beezus - $8 million

7.  Grown Ups - $7.6 million

8.  The Twilight Saga: Eclipse - $7 million

9.  The Last Airbender - $4.1 million

10.  Predators - $2.8 million

So it looks like you can release a few original movies during the summer and still make a crapload of money after all. 

Fueled by plenty of repeat business and excellent word-of-mouth from pretty much everyone who saw it last weekend, Inception easily retained the #1 spot this weekend, earning another $43.5 million and bringing its total to $143.6 million in just under 10 days.  It's also playing strongly overseas, where it has earned an additonal $84 million.

Angelina Jolie had herself a good weekend as well, with her spy thriller Salt coming in second place with $36.5 million.  Despicable Me had another great weekend, dropping only 26% to finish in third place with $24.1 million.  The animated comedy has now earned $161 million domestically.

While coming in a distant fourth place, Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice didn't drop off too terribly this weekend, only 45% to end the weekend with $9.6 million.  Regardless, it will most likely take its place right next to Prince of Persia as one of this summer's box office duds (although Persia was a big hit overseas). 

Luckily, Disney can still boast about the amazing (and well-deserved) success of Toy Story 3, which landed in 5th place with another $9 million to add to its $379 million domestic total, making it the highest grossing movie of 2010 and Pixar's highest grossing film.  Its overseas total is catching up to its domestic haul, currently standing at $351 million.

All of this appeared to be too much to handle for this weekend's other new release, Ramona & Beezus, which despite decent reviews came in at sixth place with just $8 million, which is too bad, since I loved these books as a kid and would have loved to see a movie version do well.  Maybe Fox should remember to advertise these movies next time.

The usual suspects rounded out the rest of the top 10:  both Eclipse and The Last Airbender inexplicably continue to make money, Adam Sandler is still king of the silly summer comedy as Grown Ups stands with a terrific $142 million, and Predators is hanging on with another $2.8 million.

On the limited-release front, The Kids Are All Right expanded its run to 201 theaters and earned a fantastic $2.6 million.  At this rate, it's likely to pass Cyrus as the summer indie darling.

Stay tuned for Mitch to update with the actuals once they come in!