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Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures
Despite being hyped by its evil corporate owner AEG, Michael Jackson's This Is It only earned a decent-but-hardly-great $21.3M at the box office this weekend. It was enough to win the weekend, though Paranormal Activity made a strong charge at second place ($16.5M | $84.7M). After that it was all hold-overs. The unusually robust Law Abiding Citizen continued to do well ($7.3M | $51.3M) as did the moderately funny Couples Retreat ($6M | $86.6M). The vile and stupid Saw VI rounded out the top 5 with $5.5M ($22.8M).
The second half of the top 10 was kicked off by the fantastic, fantastical Where the Wild Things Are ($5M | $61.8M). It was followed by the dull The Stepfather ($3.4M | $24.7M), the dull Astro Boy ($3M | $10.8M) and the, uh, dull Amelia ($3M | $8.3M). The well-intentioned failure Cirque du Freak rounded out the top 10 ($2.8M | $10.5M). In limited release, neither Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day ($6794 per theater) nor Gentlemen Broncos ($5000 per) were able to make much of a dent at the box office.