The total box office from North America this past weekend was slightly down from the previous weekend but still managed a decent performance thanks to a few new films opening on Friday.

Here are the weekend estimates from the past weekend:

1. Lakeview Terrace $15,600,000
2. Burn After Reading $11,295,000
3. My Best Friend's Girl $8,300,000
4. Igor $8,010,000
5. Righteous Kill $7,700,000
6. Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys $7,500,000
7. The Women (2008) $5,306,000
8. Ghost Town $5,171,000
9. The Dark Knight $2,950,000
10. The House Bunny $2,800,000

Samuel L Jackson's new film LAKEVIEW TERRACE took out top spot this weekend with 15.6 million. This is a very impressive opening given that the film only had a budget of 20 million. This should have a decent return.

BURN AFTER READING slipped to second place, adding another 11.2 million to take its total to 36.4 million. From now on, it will all be profit as this film only cost 37 million.

Third and fourth spot belong to new films MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL and IGOR with 8.3 million and 8 million respectively. That's not really spectacular but the budgets were quite low, only 20 and 30 million respectively so expect a decent rate of return for these films.

The top 4 films this weekend had low budgets which will make them profitable, but RIGHTEOUS KILL with its higher 60 million budget will have to work harder. It took in 7.7 million in its second weekend of release, with a grand total of 28.8 million.

THE DARK KNIGHT is now finishing off its run, but despite being number 10 on Friday, it finished ahead of THE HOUSE BUNNY in ninth spot with 2.95 million for the weekend. The Caped Crusader has now taken in a massive 521.9 million.

The North American box office took in a total of 78.2 million for the weekend 19-21 September 2008.