Fat elephant struggles to save bacteria colony | Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

To no one's surprise, Horton Hears a Who swamped the box office this weekend with a year's best $45.1M. It easily out-distanced 10,000 B.C. which managed to bring in an additional $16.4M ($61.2M) in its second weekend. Newcomer Never Back Down surprised to the high side with a take of $8.6M followed by hold-overs College Road Trip ($7.8M/$24.2M), Vantage Point ($5.4M/$59.2M) and an amazingly resilient The Bank Job ($4.9M/$13.1M). The weekend's final new movie, Doomsday, underperformed with only $4.7M in its debut.

Semi-Pro ($3M/$29.8M) is proving to be Will Ferrell's poorest comedy performer since the dreadful Bewitched. The Other Boleyn Girl, on the other hand, is doing a decent job of holding its audience ($2.9M/$19.1M). The Spiderwick Chronicles rounded out the top 10 in its fifth weekend ($2.3M/$65.4M). In limited release, Funny Games ($1799 per theater), Sleepwalking ($1666) and Flash Point ($319) were all dead on arrival.