The North American Box Office recovered from last weekend's slump, recovering a significant portion of the audience. It had the Coen brothers and Tyler Perry in large part to thank for that.

Here are the weekend estimates from this past weekend:

1. Burn After Reading $19,404,000
2. Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys $18,020,000
3. Righteous Kill $16,500,000
4. The Women (2008) $10,088,000
5. The House Bunny $4,300,000
6. Tropic Thunder $4,180,000
7. The Dark Knight $4,015,000
8. Bangkok Dangerous $2,400,000
9. Traitor $2,132,000
10. Death Race $2,017,000

The Coen Brothers are enjoying more good will stemming from their Oscar winning No Country For Old Men with a solid turnout for BURN AFTER READING.

Tyler Perry has an in built audience that seems guaranteed at the moment as his latest film follows the pattern of his other efforts.

RIGHTEOUS KILL, the third teaming of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro had a decent opening but it appears the novelty of seeing such two heavyweight actors together on screen is wearing off, and this effort may not recover its budget back domestically.

Nicolas Cage's BANGKOK DANGEROUS, and last week's number one film, plummeted to eighth in a clear sign of poor box office for the film. His slate of films for next year should help his rep after this disaster.

The North American box office took in a total of 86.5 million for the weekend 12-14 September 2008.