Tops at the Box Office: The Help storms weak competition for #1

1. The Help- $14.3M/$96.6M
Hurricane Irene and a soft pack of newcomers aided in The Help taking the top spot yet again. Business as a whole was down about 23% from the same weekend last year. Dropping 28% from last week, the strong word of mouth and generally favorable critical response means this is a film to keep an eye on in the next few months as award season rolls around. Remember, nobody was looking at The Blind Side as an Oscar anything at the time it came out, and look what happened.

2. Colombiana- $10.3M
Unless it's starring Liam Neeson as a butt kicking geriatric, nobody in America seems to care about Luc Besson movies. Colombiana may have performed the best of this week's newbies, but it's debut was weak, barely besting that of Besson's awful From Paris With Love. For Saldana, her cred as a bankable leading lady is still in question. 
3. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark- $8.69M
A fright flick positioned at the end of summer was always going to have a rough go of it. Audiences are typically looking for brighter, more fun films to close out the season. Even so, you'd think the name of Guillermo Del Toro would carry more weight, but it's been years since Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies. 
4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes- $8.65M/$148M
5. Our Idiot Brother- $6.59M
Considering the awful, deceptive marketing campaign I'm suprirsed this film did even this well. The Weinstein Company basically tried their best to make this Paul Rudd starrer look like a raunchy lowbrow flick, even going so far as to hack together a red band trailer a few days ago. Um, that's not what this is. It's essentially an indie film with a celebrity cast, and the laughs are more thoughtful than slap sticky. Still, this goes down as one of Rudd's worse openings, ranking even lower than How Do You Know, which was a terrible flop.
6. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World- $5.73M/$21.7M
7. The Smurfs- $4.8M/$126M
8. Conan the Barbarian- $3.1M/$16.6M
9. Fright Night- $3.03M/$14.2M
10. Crazy Stupid Love- $2.9M/$69.5M