Boasting the smallest second weekend dropoff of any of this summer's blockbusters, Inception held audience's attention (and maybe they needed to see it a second time to take it all in), and settled in at the top spot, besting the new Angelina Jolie spy flick, Salt.  However, Jolie opened quite well, and proved that she can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the guys when it comes to opening a movie.  She's also Hollywood's only reliable action chick having starred in previous genre hits such as Tomb Raider, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Wanted.

The news wasn't so good for either the other opener, Ramona and Beezus, which debuted way back in sixth place, or many of the holdovers from recent weeks.  The latest flicks from Nicholas Cage, Tom Cruise, and M. Night Shyamalan have become expensive disappointments with Cage and Cruise failing even to break the $100 million mark.  At least Selena Gomez's Ramona only cost $15 million to make.

On the other hand, Toy Story 3 has held on remarkably well in its sixth weekend.  We don't know that it will break the $400 million mark, but at this point, we won't bet against it, either.  Adam Sandler's Grown Ups has also been seeing relatively small week-to-week drops.  If Grown Ups can muster another $24 million at the box office, it will be on par with his 2006 smash, Click, in terms of attendance.  It has already surpassed his 2007 entry, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry in attendance.

This Friday, we have three debuts: Dinner for Schmucks starring Paul Rudd and Steve Carell; the family CGI feature, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore; and Zac Efron's latest, Charlie St. Cloud.  We don't think that Inception can hold on to the top spot for a third week, but it will be interesting to see just how far it will fall.  We're not expecting much from Charlie St. Cloud, not because Zac Efron isn't a good actor, but because he's still in the process of breaking out of his High School Musical fanbase to become accepted by the larger, post-adolescent audience.  If he keeps selecting interesting projects, it will happen for him, but it hasn't happened yet.

As for Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, it's a sequel to Cats & Dogs from 2001.  Nine years is an awful long time to wait to release a second entry in the family market; the kids who saw it then are teenagers now and way too cool to see the follow up.  The first movie didn't perform all that spectacularly at the box office, so we can only assume it did well enough on home video to prompt Warner Bros. to go back to the well and try again.

We're predicting Dinner for Schmucks will open at number one with a box office north of $25 million.  At number two will likely be Inception followed by Kitty Galore, Salt, and Charlie St. Cloud.  If Dinner opens weaker than we expect, and Inception holds well, it may just end up being number one for a third weekend.

 Here are the box office actuals for the weekend of July 23-25, 2010:

To no one's surprise, Inception opened strongly and marked a career best first weekend for its star, Leonardo DiCaprio.  A dense storyline starring lots of well-dressed people proved to be a hit with audiences even if they didn't actually understand it.  Reviews have been stellar, and audience intra-week attendance has been good, so it's quite possible that Inception could log another weekend in the top spot.  It's main competition is the new Angelina Jolie action flick, Salt, which seems to be a question mark in terms of how well it will open.  Previous Jolie actioners such as Wanted and Mr. and Mrs. Smith have each opened north of $50 million, but Salt's deliberately ambiguous marketing campaign and lack of a clear hook may prove to be this film's undoing come Friday.

This past weekend's other debut, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, debuted way beneath expectations, but, as we said last week, right now there are a plethora of family films to choose from that are still performing strongly, so we can see why Apprentice was the odd man out.  With a $150 million production budget, things are not looking good right now.  Summer movies tend to open big or not at all, so it's quite possible that this won't even hit the $100 million mark.

Among last week's debuts, Despicable Me is holding on nicely, while Predators lost more than 70% of its audience, and will likely drop out of the top 12 in another weekend or two.

Beyond Salt, next weekend's other wide debut is the Selena Gomez family flick, Ramona and Beezus, which we're not expecting to make all that much of an impact.

Here are the box office actuals for the weekend of July 16-18, 2010:

In spite of last week's debut of the latest Twilight flick, this weekend's business actually increased over last weekend by almost 7%.  That's likely due to the fact that Twilight opened on Wednesday and made a lot of its money before the weekend even started.  Still, holdovers from last weekend did not crash and burn (with one notable exception), and the two major releases debuted to solid opening numbers.

Despicable Me has given Universal Studios the animated hit it has been searching for courtesy of its distribution deal with new animation producer, Illumination Entertainment.  This was even more impressive considering the fact that Toy Story 3 is still playing quite well, raking in over $20 million in its fourth weekend.  Predators, the latest attempt to revive the franchise, scored an okay opening, but given that it was made on only a $40 million budget, it's already grossed about a third of what it needs to in order to break even.

On the other side of the coin, while many movies in the top 12 had acceptable drops from last weekend, including Adam Sandler's latest, Grown Ups, which had by far the smallest drop of the top 12, M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender crashed with the largest drop of the top 12 – almost 60%.  Looks like those awful reviews have caught up with it.  At this rate, the movie will top out at around $130 million domestically.

Next weekend is the debut of Inception, the highly-anticipated new film from Christopher Nolan, the director behind the blockbuster The Dark Knight.  It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, and the combination of star power, director pedigree, and thrilling trailers should make this a sizable hit.

But will it open at number one?  Don't count out The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Disney's live action adaptation inspired by the Mickey Mouse sequence from Fantasia.  It stars Nicholas Cage and is directed by John Turteltaub, who directed Cage in his twin National Treasure hits (also for Disney).  We suspect that Inception will take the top spot, but The Sorcerer's Apprentice, rated PG is clearly going for that all-powerful family audience, so it will be interesting to see if the family market is too crowded for yet another flick so soon after Toy Story and (just one week after) Despicable Me.

 Here are the box office actuals for the weekend of July 9-11, 2010:

The actuals from the extended four-day weekend are in (as July 4th was extended into Monday by most businesses), and, to no one's surprise, the latest chapter in the Twilight franchise, Eclipse, easily sank its fangs into the number one spot.  While not quite as good a debut as the previous installment, New Moon, this is still a fantastic achievement for Summit Entertainment who produces these movies relatively on the cheap.  Eclipse's production budget was just under $70 million, meaning that it has already gotten out of the red, so to speak, and is in solid profit-making territory.  Add in another $100+ million gross from foreign markets, and the success is even more impressive.  The news gets even better for Summit as Letters to Juliet vaults back into the top 12 after being at number 18 last week.  The film is playing on fewer screens as compared to last week, so its huge increase in box office could likely be attributed to its being shown on the discount theater circuit, which attracts larger crowds of casual movie fans.

Another impressive debut came from Paramount's The Last Airbender, based on the Nickelodeon American-anime series.  The flick, directed by M. Night Shyalaman, has raked in about $70 million since its Thursday debut and has seemingly overcome some of the most brutal reviews in recent movie history.  It will be interesting to see how it holds up in its second weekend, but for now it's a solid debut for Shyamalan who desperately needed a comeback after his last couple of movies failed at the box office.

It should be noted that the percentage changes from last week in the table below are lower than they ordinarily would have been because we are comparing a four-day weekend against a three-day.  For example, just comparing the Friday-through-Sunday frame of this weekend to last weekend, Toy Story 3's drop would have been 49% rather than the 27.4% shown below.

This Friday's new releases include Predators, the newest entry in the Predator franchise, and Despicable Me, the latest CGI-animated flick from Universal Pictures whose previous CGI entries, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie and The Tale of Despereaux both flopped at the box office in 2008.

Here are the box office actuals for the weekend of July 2-5, 2010: