It took a thriller about disease to finally knock The Help out of first place, but still the period drama held its on in the first weekend of the fall movie season.

Contagion was the only major release this weekend, and with a public starved for something new to watch, it brought in a healthy $23.1 million. Not a huge amount, but we are no longer talking summer numbers at this point. With fairly positive reviews, it should have some life to it.

Coming in second was The Help with $8.6 million. Despite falling out of first place, this movie did have the distinction of winning first place for the most consecutive days since 1999′s The Sixth Sense.

Coming in third was Warrior about … well, some sort of fighting.  I really haven’t followed this production at all.  It brought in $5.6 million, and considering its $25 million dollar budget, things aren’t looking too good.

The Debt fell 50% to land in fourth with$4.9 million.  Not a horribly big surprise as I have seen next to no advertising for this film beyond a one week blitz.  Not sure what the thinking was behind this release.

Coming in fifth was Colombiana, which still took a large tumble from last week’s fall, but it was somehow able to lock in the top five with $4 million.

Overall it was an underwhelming weekend, but not surprising as we enter the normally slow fall, and especially in a year that has already seen a downturn in box office revenues.

Next weekend sees no huge releases, but you can expect to see Drive, I Don’t Know How She Does It, a re-release of The Lion King in 3D and the remake of Straw Dogs.

Oh, and where was Conan the Barbarian? In 28th place with an 81% drop in business and the loss of 1,171 theaters, leaving it in only 551 locations. And how much did it bring in? $300,000. This brings its domestic total to $20.9 after three weeks of release and a $90 million budget. We are definitely looking at one of the biggest flops of the year. While Green Lantern didn’t do well, based on percentages, Conan has done even worse.

The Help won a third weekend in a row, and some amazing stats to go along with it.

Theoretically you could say the fact The Help only lost 2.3% of its business from last weekend could be chalked up the fact less screens were open last weekend due to Hurricane Irene.  If those screens had been open, the film would have made more last weekend, meaning it’s take this weekend would be a bigger drop, but any way you slice it, it still brought in $14.2 million, bringing its domestic gross to $118.6 million off of a $25 million budget.

The new releases this week were subdued, and no match for the might of the three week title holder.  Coming in second was the thriller The Debt.  It scored a modest $9.67 million in its opening weekend.

Third and fourth place were separated by a mere $60,000.  Apollo 18 took third with $8.7 million while Shark Night 3D came in with $8.64 million.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes continued to beat its chest, coming in fifth this week with $7.8 million.  It hasn’t set box office records, but it has certainly done a healthy business bringing in a total of $160 million domestically.

Overall the summer film season is closing out with a whimper, with nothing but The Help catching on with audiences.  All of last week’s new releases - Colombiana, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Our Idiot Brother - all fell out of the top 5.  The title for the most embarrassing August release has to go to Conan the Barbarian which fell to 17th place this weekend with a paltry $1.3 million in its third weekend for a domestic total of $19.6 million.  It hasn’t even been able to beat the dollar total of the 1982 film of the same name which brought in $39 million.  Adjusted for inflation the new one is a complete train wreck.

The only major release for next weekend is Contagion, with a couple smaller films also taking their opening bows.

The Help was crowned champion of the weekend once again, and it wasn’t all due to a hurricane.

Once again the the drama about the race relations between African-American employees and their white employers fended off three newcomers to win the weekend.  In its fourth weekend of release, The Help brought in an estimated $14.3 million to take first place.

While it was able to hold off the newcomers, it looks like it was a combination of weak new releases, and Hurricane Irene keeping people out of the theaters.  This ended up being the second weakest weekend of the year, coming in only behind Superbowl weekend.

Coming in second was the female-driven action film Colombiana with $10.3 million. This was a better showing for an action film starring Zoe Saldana, best known for playing Uhura in the 2009 Star Trek.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark came in with just $8.7 million, and a fairly weak stat for the horror genre.

In fourth place was Rise of the Planet of the Apes with around $8.65 million, adding to its winning ways of the past several weeks. Considering the number of new releases that have come out since its initial release, the fact that its held on this strongly is a good sign.

Round out the top 5 was the Paul Rudd comedy Our Idiot Brother. It only brought in $6.58 million off of a $5 million dollar budget. Factor in marketing costs and it still has a ways to go.

Notice that none of last weeks new releases held on to the top 5. Spy Kids 4 fell nearly 51% to land in sixth place with $5.7 million. Conan the Barbarian landed in eighth with a 69.1% decline to bring in a laughable $3.1 million. Despite landing in ninth place wih just over $3 million, Fright Night fared better as it only dropped off about 60% from its previous showing.

The only release for next weekend is The Debt, so it definitely looks like we are leaving the thrill of the summer releases.  Barring something highly unusual happening, I have a feeling The Help will enjoy a third weekend at the top.

There are bad weekends in the movie business, and then there are BAD WEEKENDS.  Anyone want to guess which one this one was?

It’s rare for a movie to rise to the #1 spot after multiple weeks on the chart, but that’s exactly what happened with The Help this weekend when it pulled in $20.5 million.  It slid only 21% from last weekend, which is impressive for any film these days, but in three weekends the movie has pulled in a total of $71.8 million off of a $25 million budget, it is well into the profit region.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes fell 41.4% to $16.5 million and now sits at $133.7 million for a domestic total.  Not too shabby, and the fact it hasn’t fallen further probably only strengthens the sequel talk that has already been circulating.

It’s in the number three region of the list that the bloodbath that was this weekend kicks in.  The top new release of the was Spy Kids 4 with an anemic $12 million. Despite it’s somewhat modest budget of $27 million, it’s going to have a hard time hitting the $54 million needed to consider it a success. Why this series even came back is beyond me, but the box office numbers definitely prove out that I was not alone in my confusion.

Conan the Barbarian landed with a thud in fourth place with $10 million.  Seeing as it had a $90 million budget, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see some news today of some executives being shown the door.  Jason Momoa in the title role always seemed a tad odd to me as he has no marquee titles to his name, and it’s doubtful anyone outside of Stargate: Atlantis fans even know who he is.

Coming in fifth was The Smurfs.  As if it wasn’t bad enough a couple weeks ago when it looked like this movie had beaten Cowboys & Aliens, this week the little blue creatures claimed another big name victim in the form of Fright Night. The kid friendly film pulled in another $8 million compared to the horror movie remake’s paltry $7.9 million. (I expect the final numbers to shift slightly)  Fright Night only had a $30 million dollar budget, but good luck making that back with this sort of debut.

If this weekend teaches us anything, it is next to impossible to predict what movie goes are in the mood for.  You could say remakes are now the kiss of death, but can’t you technically say then that Rise of the Planet of the Apes shouldn’t be doing so well?  Overall, something is afoot at the box office, and it’s time for the studios to be taking a few more lessons from these failures.

Next week will see three new releases, but none of them look like the type to take the box office by storm. Colombiana, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Our Idiot Brother all look set to ring out the end of the summer with a full thud.