Box Office: The Help Is the Boss of Conan and Spy Kids 4D

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Emma Stone, left, and Viola Davis in The Help

Maybe the movie business should just take late August off — close up shop for a few weeks and plan a Hollywood holiday. Because the multiplexes are so empty, not even the crickets come. Take this weekend, please: four films made their debut, and moviegoers, in Samuel Goldwyn's famous phrase, stayed away in droves.

In its second week, The Help took in $20.5 million to win the weekend in North American theaters, according to early studio estimates. The inspirational interracial drama starring Emma Stone and Viola Davis has earned nearly $71.8 million in 10 days, and bids fair to keep touching hearts and minds through Oscar season. In second place, after two turns at the top, was Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which is now up to $133.8 million at home, with another $94.2 million in theaters abroad. Other than that, desolation reigned.

Attempts to redial hits of the past got only a call-waiting. Fright Night, an update of the 1985 horror hit, scared up little business: $7 million, finishing fifth for the weekend. One notch above it was Conan the Barbarian, the sword-and-gore remake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film smash. Baby Conan grossed a puny $10 million, and to gauge the magnitude of its failure, you need only glance at the numbers for the opening weekend of the 1982 original. Back when the average ticket price was under $3 — it's now about $8 — Arnold's muscle epic took in $9.6 million at 1,395 theaters for a $6,883-per-screen average — more than double what the new movie earned ($3,317 per screen), and that's not factoring in the gigantic rate of inflation. The Barbarian got barbecued.

Conan and Fright Night, both rated R, received apathetic B-minus ratings from CinemaScore's polling of moviegoers. They gave a B-plus to the PG-rated Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, known familiarly as Spy Kids 4D (the fourth dimension: smell!). Robert Rodriguez's revival of his underage-espionage comedy series also did best at the box office among the week's new films, with $12 million. Still, that's the lowest opening for any Spy Kids picture; the earlier episodes opened to $26.5 million in 2001, $16.7 million in 2002 and an eye-popping $33.4 million for the 3-D threequel in 2003.

In indie action, Amigo, the John Sayles history lesson about the U.S. occupation of the Philippines, opened to a pacifist $40,000 in 10 theaters. The Guard, with Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle, crossed the $1 million mark, and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris finally made it to $50 million (with another $33.5 million abroad). Mysteries of Lisbon, the 4½-hr. period soap epic from world-class Chilean auteur Raul Ruiz, finished last on Box Office Mojo's list of 47 films in current release, with $6,000 for the weekend and $55,200 in three weeks. Those numbers may pick up as the rave reviews — and news of Ruiz's death on Friday, at 70 — prod discerning cinephiles into taking a chance on a masterpiece in Portuguese.

Anne Hathaway has long been an indie fave with crossover skills. Well known and widely liked, she's an important ornament to hit cartoons (Rio) and boffo CGI films (Alice in Wonderland). She also adds appeal to ensemble romances (Valentine's Day) and comedies in which she's billed second (to Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, and to Kate Hudson in Bride Wars). But as the main star, in smaller films like Becoming Jane, Rachel Getting Married and Passengers, she can't even attract flies. Nor have Hathaway's recent co-starring gigs with very eligible leading men fared well: Love and Other Drugs, her topless foray with Jake Gyllenhaal, earned only $32.4 million in its entire domestic run, and the Oscar ceremony she hosted with James Franco in February lost 4 million viewers from the year before. One Day, in which she and Jim Sturgess play young lovers whose lives diverge and reconnect over a 13-year span, came in ninth on this week's dilapidated box office chart.

Mind you, Hathaway is still young: 28. She was born six months after the Schwarzenegger Conan opened, and three years before the first Fright Night.

Here are the Sunday estimates of this weekend's top-grossing pictures in North American theaters, as reported by Box Office Mojo:

1. The Help, $20.5 million; $71.8 million, second week
2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes, $16.3 million; $133.8 million, third week
3. Spy Kids 4D, $12 million, first weekend
4. Conan the Barbarian, $10 million, first weekend
5. The Smurfs, $8 million; $117.8 million, fourth week
6. Fright Night, $7.9 million, first weekend
7. Final Destination 5, $7.7 million; $32.3 million, second week
8. 30 Minutes or Less, $6.3 million; $25.8 million, second week
9. One Day, $5.1 million, first weekend
10. Crazy Stupid Love, $4.95 million; $64.4 million, fourth week