To no one's surprise, Saw IV handily topped the box office this weekend with a haul of 32.1 million dollars. It's the third consecutive year that a film from the Saw franchise has won the Halloween weekend. I'm sure we all know what to expect next year. Dan in Real Life had a reasonably good debut, taking in $12M and re-establishing Steve Carell as a box-office force after the disaster that was Evan Almighty.

The weekend was relatively ho-hum after the top 2. 30 Days of Night dropped a steep 58% in its second weekend ($6.7M/$27.3M) while the awful The Game Plan held strong in its 5th week ($6.2M/$77M). Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married skidded a little bit ($5.7M/$47.3M); Michael Clayton showed continued resilience ($5.0M/$28.7M) and Gone Baby Gone did okay ($3.9M/$11.3M). Closing out the top ten were The Comebacks ($3.45/$10M), We Own the Night ($3.40M/$25M) and The Nightmare Before Christmas ($3.3M/$10M).

Among the limited release crowd, Bella grabbed $1.3M out of 165 venues; Before the Devil Knows You're Dead averaged a boffo $36,750 in 2 theaters and Pete Seeger: The Power of Song pulled in $12,500 from a single playdate. Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains ($1514 per), Mr. Untouchable ($2000), Music Within ($2647), Rails & Ties ($2000) and Slipstream ($1000) all did mediocre to poor business and will soon be gone.

Photo courtesy of Lions Gate Entertainment