The box office was a wonderland for Alice, Milla Jovovich's zombie fighter, in Resident Evil: Afterlife. In what was surely the least suspenseful box office contest of the year, the fourth Resident Evil film easily grabbed the top spot on the chart with an opening estimated at $27.7 million, a record for the franchise. Takers continues to hold, actually climbing one rung to second place in its third weekend of release. It earned another estimated $6.1 million, with the highest per-screen average ($2,784) of any wide-release movie except Resident Evil. The heist drama has nabbed a total of $48.1 million to date. Falling hard were last week's two new thrillers. The American lost 55 percent of its business and fell from the top spot to third place, probably because of disappointed word-of-mouth from moviegoers who'd been led to expect an action-packed spectacle instead of a contemplative, brooding, European-style drama. Its second-week take was an estimated ...

George Clooney's hitman tale The American captured the top spot at the box office with a $16.4 million debut over the long Labour Day weekend. Since opening Wednesday, the Focus Features release has taken in $19.5 million. The 20th Century Fox revenge romp Machete and Sony's heist thriller Takers were in a duel for second-place. Machete led with $14 million from Friday to Monday. Takers followed with $13.5 million. Takers" which had been the No. 1 movie the previous weekend, raised its 10-day total to $40 million. The weekend's other new wide release, Drew Barrymore's romance Going the Distance from Warner Bros., opened at No. 5 with $8.6 million. It was a typically quiet Labuor Day period for Hollywood, a transition weekend as summer blockbuster season ends and young audiences prepare for the start of the school year. With $3.9 million over the long weekend, Universal's animated hit Despicable Me raised its haul to $241.3 million, surpa...