Box Office Review: America Loves Abusing Aliens!

In a rare show of good taste, Americans flocked to the alien civil rights drama, District 9, as it rang up a surprising $37M in sales to top the weekend box office. Last week's champ, G.I. Joe: Didn't Suck As Much As Transformers, had a decent second frame ($22.5M | $98.7M), managing to hold off newcomer The Time Traveler's Wife ($19.2M). After that it was the mostly delightful Julie & Julia ($12.4M | $43.6M), the stupid G-Force ($6.9M | $99M) and The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, which debuted to a disappointing $5.3M.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince continued to perform well in its fifth week ($5.1M | $283.8M) as did, unfortunately, The Ugly Truth ($4.5M | $77.5M). Ponyo opened to a weak $3.5M while (500) Days of Summer continued to thrive ($3M | $17.9M). The weekend's other new film, Bandslam, wasn't even able to crack the top 10 ($2.2M). In limited release, the rousing It Might Get Loud had a great start ($14,429 per theater) while the moronic Spread barely made a blip ($1,286) and should vanish from theaters quickly.