Ron Phillips/Warner Bros
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For the second week in a row, ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ took the top spot at the box office adding $64.1 million to its total which is now standing tall at $289 million. ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ has not, however, reached the success of its predecessor nor of the other big comic book movie of this summer – Joss Whedon’s ‘The Avengers.’ Don’t get me wrong ‘TDKR’ is still a huge hit – and a supreme achievement in super hero filmmaking to boot (with the film’s last hour being particularly inspiring) – so all is well in the Nolan universe. What’s more interesting to me was the lack of firepower sent in to do battle with the batman. ‘The Watch’ and ‘Step Up Revolution’ came up lame taking $13 and $11.8 million respectively, good for third and fourth place. ‘Ice Age: Continental Drift’ added $13.3 million to its impressive $114 million.

So, what does this weekend’s box office say about us? I think it says more about what the studios think know about our viewing habits. Big! Superhero! Blockbusters! are the order of the day so much so that most studios don’t even release any competition for them for a few weeks. Both ‘The Watch’ and ‘Step Up’ seemed like throw aways, films used more as canon fodder than actual competition. This is fine and probably the right move in the long run. Some people avoid the big movie during its first weekend because the theaters are packed and kids are annoying, so there’s always a big audience for week two. By week three, mostly everyone who wants to see it has seen it and thus the film becomes vulnerable. We’ll see next weekend if ‘Total Recall’ can capitalize and become the sleeper hit I’m expecting it to be.
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Rounding out the top five was ‘Ted’ in fifth place with $7.4 million.