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Casual isn’t the new cool, and Angelina Jolie wasn’t the flavor of the weekend.  Despite the gravitational pull her lips may have, they didn’t suck enough fans in to get Salt up to the number one spot.  Ingenuity and the brilliant craftsmanship of one Christopher Nolan won out over accessibility, as Inception topped the charts for the second weekend in a row.  It wasn’t a complete stomping.  Salt faired well in its opening weekend and even Despicable Me had an astonishing third weekend out, but the buzz continues to build and intrigue movie goers into seeing just what Inception is all about.

Even with it having the widest opening of her career on 3612 screens, Salt had a respectable but not breathtaking opening.  It’s the worst opening she has had for a Summer, tent pole film since Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life opened to $21.7 million in 2003, but we can blame a lot of that film’s failure on its title alone.  Salt wasn’t able to hit Jolie’s usual stride of the $40-50-million range.  Nonetheless it did well, and should it gain eventual momentum to get its final domestic tally past the $100-million, we could be seeing more of Angeline Jolie headliners in these Summer months.

Incredible word of mouth and overall interest in seeing just how ground-breaking it is helped lead Inception to the #1 spot, though.  It only had a 30.7% drop from its first weekend, the best second weekend drop off of Christopher Nolan’s career (we aren’t going to count Memento‘s slow roll out in 2001).  With an additional $84 million made in foreign sales, Inception is already well past the $200-million mark in worldwide box office.  While nothing official was announced regarding Batman 3 at Comic-Con this weekend, expect Warner Brothers to be ringing Nolan’s line off the hook getting him moving on the project.  I don’t think anyone would be complaining about it.

As for the rest of the box office, kid’s and family movies were big winners with five of the top ten movies having a PG or better rating.  Ramona and Beezus didn’t have much of an opening, but with a budget of only $15 million they weren’t expecting blockbuster numbers.

Grown Ups continues to surprise with its presence in the top 10, this week dropping only 23.3% from last weekend.  At $142 million, it is Sandler’s best movie in five year and nothing seems to indicate it won’t beat out The Longest Yard‘s $158-million take.

On 163 additional screens, the indie sleeper The Kids Are All Right almost broke into the top ten.  It ended up with $2.6 million over the weekend, just $200,000 shy of Predators‘ #10 spot.  Some are already claiming it could be this year’s Little Miss Sunshine and will likely see some awards thrown its way when we hit the end of the year.

Here is how the weekend box office shaped up:

1. Inception – $43.5m (-30.7%) $143.6m total
2. Salt – $36.5m NEW
3. Despicable Me – $24.1m (-26.5%) $161.7m total
4. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – $9.6m (-45%) $42.6m total
5. Toy Story 3 – $9m (-24.7%) $379.5m total
6. Ramona and Beezus – $8m NEW
7. Grown Ups – $7.6m (-23.3%) $142.4m total
8. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – $7m (-47.6%) $279.6m total
9. The Last Airbender – $4.1m (-46.2%) $123.2m total
10. Predators – $2.8m (-59.4%) $46.5m total

This weekend’s $152.2 million is a decline from last weekend, down 9.9% to be precise.  This is the second decline from the previous weekend in as many weeks, which hasn’t occurred since the Summer season began.  It could be the dog days of Summer are upon us.

The forecast doesn’t look all that grand, either, with nothing in the way of major blockbusters to be seen now until close to the end of the year.  Scott Pilgrim vs. the World could very well surprise us all with a monster opening in mid-August, but that is about it as far as huge, tent pole films go.  It seems likely we won’t have another film break the $50-million barrier for an opening weekend until November when films like Megamind and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 hit.  Like I said though, there could always be a surprise waiting in the wings.

It doesn’t seem likely from next week’s crop.  Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Dinner for Schmucks, and Charlie St. Cloud all hit. A few of them might have a shot at taking Inception‘s crown away.  None of them seem like sure contenders, and the chances of another decrease in overall tickets sales is anticipated.  We’ll be back on Thursday to run down how we see the weekend turning out.

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