'Contagion' tops weekend B.O.

'Contagion'In its domestic debut frame, Warner Bros.' epidemic ensembler "Contagion" won top B.O. honors with an estimated $23.1 million from 3,222 locations, including 254 in Imax. Pic beat Disney-DreamWorks' three-time champ "The Help," while in its fifth frame collected enough ($8.7 million) to rank second for a cume of $137.1 million.Overseas, Sony's "The Smurfs" held on the top spot for its fifth straight week, grossing $14.9 million for a cume of $321.2 million. But holdovers like "Friends with Benefits" did well, expanding to major markets. "Benefits," also from Sony, grossed a solid weekend take of $10.2 million, driven by bows in the U.K., France and Germany; pic's cume reached $29.2 million in four weeks."Contagion" opened day and date in six markets - Italy being the only major territory - with a weekend gross of $2.1 million.The Warner pic, which earned $2.3 million from Imax (or 10% of its Stateside bow), had plenty of steam going into the weekend, as most B.O. pundits expected the pic to win with a debut at around $20 million-$25 million."Contagion," toplining a topnotch cast that includes Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Marion Cotillard, beat two other studio wide releases: Lionsgate's "Warrior" bowed below expectations with $5.6 million, while Sony's R-rated laffer "Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star" earned a dismal $1.5 million.The frame's top two titles, both of which were co-financed by Participant Media, hooked mostly adult audiences, a boon demo for late August and post-Labor Day box office.By contrast, "Bucky Larson" was expected to skew heavily toward males under 25 (Sony didn't conduct exit polls), though "Warrior" saw a relatively even split between auds over and under 25. In fact, the latter film grossed 51% of its opening from adult moviegoers - a statistic that Lionsgate distribution topper David Spitz attributes to positive reactions from advanced screenings and good reviews."It's good to be throwing the first punch in the market place," Spitz said, referring to the usual packed fall lineup of adult-skewing pics. "The strategy all along was to establish ourselves as one of the first important fall dramas."With "Contagion," Warner exec VP and general sales manager Jeff Goldstein said he slightly underestimated the film's weekend estimate, since some auds might stay home for the 9/11 anni. (Goldstein said the film could go up by roughly $200,000 with Monday's actuals.) Contact Andrew Stewart at andrew.stewart@variety.com

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