It was the battle of men vs. women at the American box office this weekend, a conflict won rather handily by Sylvester Stallone and his muscular man-team of action heroes.** The Expendables **dominated the charts, parachuting into first place with $35 million. That meant Julia Roberts’ spiritual and romantic quest in **Eat Pray Love **had to make do with discovering itself in second place, with a decent $23.7 million.
The two fresh arrivals shoved last week’s champ and second place, The Other Guys and Inception down to third and fourth place with $18 million and $11.3 million respectively.
But there was bad news to be found elsewhere as Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic book series, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, sadly failed to find much love with audiences, getting punched down to fifth place with $10.5 million. The movie didn’t even manage to scrape together the cash to reach the low figure that many had been estimating. Still, we take heart from the fact that **Scott Pilgrim **will be thought about and talked about long after the world has forgotten either of the two box office champs. It’ll have to go some to make back its $60 million budget and promotional costs, but we’d guess the DVD sales will help - and word of mouth might yet pick it up in weekend two.
As for the rest of the charts, Despicable Me clung on to sixth place with $6.7 million, while Step Up 3D fell swiftly to seventh with $6.6 million. That put it ahead of Salt in eighth with $6.35 million and Dinner For Schmucks at ninth with $6.3 million. Finally, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore prepared to exit the top 10 with $4 million this weekend.
For all your bullet-ridden chart needs, head over to Box Office Mojo.