Another awful movie takes box office

By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

Moviegoers were into He's Just Not That Into You.
The romantic comedy earned $27.5 million, according to studio estimates from box office tracking firm Nielsen EDI.

The haul was $7 million more than expected and gave star Jennifer Aniston her second straight No. 1 film, after December's Marley & Me.

The Liam Neeson thriller Taken was a strong No. 2, dropping just 18% from its debut to take in $20.3 million. It has done $53.4 million in 10 days.

On a weekend with four new movies, the animated film Coraline had a solid third-place debut with $16.3 million, about $6 million more than projected.

Steve Martin's The Pink Panther 2 was fourth with $12 million, about $6 million less than many analysts had predicted.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop inched closer to becoming the first blockbuster of 2009, taking fifth place with $11 million and lifting its total to $97 million.

The only other major newcomer, the action film Push, met most expectations with $10.2 million and sixth place.

Among the Academy Awards best-picture contenders, Slumdog Millionaire is the only movie that remains in the top 10. It did $7.4 million and raised its total to $77.4 million. Slumdog became the second highest-grossing film ever for distributor Fox Searchlight, behind only Juno's $143 million.

With six movies doing more than $10 million this weekend, ticket sales surged 29% ahead of last week and 49% ahead of the same weekend last year.