Box Office

From ew, Tyler Perry is on fire. The filmmaker’s latest movie, I Can Do Bad All By Myself, burned the rest of the competition by grossing $24 million, according to early estimates by Hollywood.com Box Office. In only five years, Perry has made eight films, five of which debuted at the top of the charts. I Can Do Bad represented the director’s third-largest opening, trailing Madea Goes to Jail, which put away $41 million its first weekend earlier this year, and Madea’s Family Reunion, which tallied $30 million in 2006. Audiences liked what they saw too, as I Can Do Bad, which stars Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) as a nightclub singer, earned a solid “A” rating from CinemaScore moviegoers.

The post-apocalyptic animated flick 9 took second place with $10.9 million in just 1,661 theaters. The PG-13 toon, which premiered on Wednesday, has cumulatively earned $15.3 million. Third place went to Quentin Tarantino’s sturdy Inglourious Basterds, which dropped only 44 percent in its fourth weekend to capture $6.5 million. The violent WWII pic, which has so far grossed $104.3 million, should pass Pulp Fiction this week to become Tarantino’s highest-grossing movie. Rounding out the top 5 were two holdovers: The Sandra Bullock comedy All About Steve (No. 4 with $5.8 million) and the 3-D horror movie The Final Destination (No. 5 with $5.5 million).

The weekend’s two other new releases failed to leave a mark. The college slasher Sorority Row pledged $5.3 million, which was enough for sixth place but far behind the recent openings of The Final Destination ($27.4 million) and Halloween II ($16.3 million). The Kate Beckinsale thriller Whiteout, which is set in Antarctica, froze on arrival with a mere $5.1 million. The single penguin employee in Antarctica’s tourism office won’t be uncorking that bottle of champagne tonight.

In limited release, The September Issue — the documentary about Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour — expanded into 111 theaters and grossed $730,000 for a fashionable per-screen average of $6,577.