Firefly

Scott Weinberg writes: "For the second weekend in a row, Jodie Foster’s air-thriller "Flightplan" was #1 at the North American box office. The Disney flick made an estimated $15 million in its sophomore session, and its grand total now stands at $46.1 million. Debuting in second place, with a not-awful but coulda-(shoulda)-been-better tally of $10.1 was Joss Whedon’s "Serenity."

The sci-fi western swooped into 2,200 screens, thrilled the "Firefly" fans ... and caught the eye of practically nobody else. With strong reviews and positive water-cooler banter, the flick could see an improvement, but hey ... the thing cost $40 million and it made a quarter of that in three days, so you Whedonites can take your heads out of the oven.

Tim Burton’s "Corpse Bride" dropped to third place with a haul of $9.7 million, which boosts the film’s total to just under $33 million. Expanding from 14 theaters to 1,340 (and reaping some solid rewards for it) was David Cronenberg’s "A History of Violence," which made 4th place with a total of $8.2 million, while the top 5 was rounded out by the feature-length Noxzema commercial known as "Into the Blue," which made only $7 million from just under 2,800 screens.

Next week sees the release of a rather eclectic collection of new releases: Nick Park’s eagerly anticipated "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" opens on Wednesday in NY & LA, before hitting wide on Friday, and the clay-mated kooks will have some competition from Curtis Hanson’s lady-centric "In Her Shoes," the Al Pacino sports-book drama "Two for the Money," and Lions Gate’s raunchy restaurant romp "Waiting."

For a closer look at the weekend estimates, feel free to get comfy at the Rotten Tomatoes Box Office page."