BOX OFFICE

Dinner for Schmucks on Top

Two Steve Carell films in top five.

The new comedy starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, Dinner for Schmucks, took in $8.4 million on its Friday debut, beating out Christopher Nolan's Inception, which is in its third weekend. It remains to be seen how long Schmucks’ dominance will last— Inception, an unusually heady summer blockbuster, has shown striking staying power, its box-office take down just 38 percent from the previous Friday. Carell has another movie, Despicable Me, which picked up $4.7 million this Friday and has netted more than $175 million since its release. In between Schmucks and Despicable were Salt, a spy film starring Angelina Jolie, in third place; Charlie St. Cloud, a teen romance with ghosts and Zac Efron, at fourth; followed by Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, starring talking 3-D animals, coming in sixth.