Photo by Ron Phillips/Warner Bros. Pictures
CHRISTIAN BALE as Batman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action thriller “THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.”

1. The Dark Knight Rises – $64 million [$243 million; 2nd week] The third installment of  Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy once again easily captured the number one spot at the box office. For the first 8 days of its release, “TDKR’s” $243 million gross trails the 2008 “The Dark Knight” take of $261 million and “Marvel’s The Avengers’” $299 million. There’s more than a few asterisks to this though. The Summer Olympics’ opening ceremony attracted a record 40.7 rating in the U.S. so a number of potential audience members stayed home to watch the worldwide event. The Colorado shooting tragedy also seemed to keep more than a few audiences away from theaters. Still, the film has already earned more than $400 million worldwide so it’s not like this has been a disappointment by any means, but you’ve gotta think it would be coming closer to challenging “The Avengers” for summer box office dominance.

2. 4. Ice Age: Continental Drift – $13.3 million [$105 million; 3rd week] The animated film is trailing its most recent outing “Ice Age 3″ by $25 million. This isn’t the most surprising seeing as how parents concerned about theater safety wouldn’t be rushing to take their children to any movie especially when they’ll be playing it on endless loops when it comes out on DVD anyway.

Melinda Sue Gordon/20th Century Fox Film Corp.
Richard Ayoade, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller and Jonah Hill are THE WATCH.

3. The Watch – $13 million [debut week] Audiences didn’t seem to care too much about seeing “The Watch,” the sci-fi/comedy starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. The trailers looked too goofy and if audiences were concerned about their safety going to the movies this weekend, this wasn’t going to be the movie they were going to put themselves at risk to see.

Sam Emerson/Summit Entertainment
RYAN GUZMAN and KATHRYN McCORMICK star in STEP UP: REVOLUTION

4. Step Up Revolution – $11.8 million. [debut week] The dance franchise still has a few moves left despite a pretty simple format that continues to work for its target pre-teen/teen audience. And I’m only partially hating on this series because they dance better than I ever could with a team of choreographers working 24/7. Sigh.

Photo Credit: Universal Pictures/Tippett Studio
John (MARK WAHLBERG) walks his best friend, Ted (voiced by SETH MACFARLANE), to a job interview in the live action/CG-animated comedy “Ted.”

5. Ted – $7.3 million [5th week; $188 million] – The foul-mouthed bear racked up another solid profit as it comes close to $200 million during its last week in the Top 5.