Resident Evil Extinction tops the US Box office

The sight of Milla Jovovich kicking undead backside was clearly how America wanted to spend this past weekend as the third entry in the Resident Evil franchise – Extinction – arrived at the top of the US box office charts with a haul of $24 million.

Second place went to Good Luck Chuck, which sees Dane Cook and Jessica Alba falling in love (and trying not to get hurt). It took in $13.8 million. Jodie Foster’s The Brave One, meanwhile slipped down 45% in its earnings to third, but stayed strong in its second week with $7.5 million.

That put 3:10 To Yuma into fourth place, but it managed to hold even better than Brave One, dropping just 29% for a weekend take of $6.3 million, which means the Western has now made $37.9 million. There was good news too for David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises as despite opening in a thousand fewer cinemas than most of its chart-mates, took in $5.7 million in its launch weekend. Looks like the Americans who didn’t want Milla Jovovich and weapons wanted naked Viggo Mortensen.

But not everybody can do so well, and Amanda Bynes was this week’s loser as her new (though barely advertised) teen comedy Sydney White (can’t think which fairytale it’s updating) possessed little magic, damp squibbing into sixth place with $5.3 million. That put it just ahead of last week’s number three, Billy Bob Thornton’s Mr Woodcock, which made $4.9 million this time out.

And so to the bottom of the charts, where Superbad has finally begun to slip out, though not before out-grossing (in every sense of the word) Hairspray with $116 million. At ninth sits The Bourne Ultimatum, also sitting pretty on a hefty box office run of $220 million in the US alone (it’s nabbed even more worldwide), while at 10th is Dragon Wars, which is rapidly falling down the charts and could only fire up $2.5 million in tickets this weekend.