Dinner For Schmucks, Charlie St. Cloud | featured news

Steve Carell comedy opens at No. 1 with $8.4 million, followed by "Inception's" $8.2 million and "Salt's" third place, $5.9 million showing.

FRIDAY 9:45 PM: Sources just gave me these very early box office numbers for today. I'll refine them when I post my analysis:
1 - Dinner For Schmucks (Paramount)
$8.5M Friday, $24M Est Weekend
2 - Inception (Warner Bros)
$8M Friday, $27M Est Weekend
3 - Salt (Sony)
$5.6M Friday, $18M Est Weekend

This week at the movies, we've got a dinner party disaster (Dinner for Schmucks, starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd), some after-death bonding (Charlie St. Cloud, starring Zac Efron and Kim Basinger), and a joint canine-feline mission (Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, starring Chris O'Donnell and Jack McBrayer). What do the critics have to say? It's not unusual for a remake to lose something in transition, and that's the case with Dinner for Schmucks, an American take on the acid French farce The Dinner Game.