Box Office, Warner Bros. | featured news

Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros.' inspirational Dolphin Tale took the No. 1 spot in its second weekend with $14.2 million, wresting the box office crown from fellow family pic The Lion King. Dolphin Tale fell only 27 percent--proving again the clout of an A+ CinemaScore—and ended the weekend with a domestic cume of $37.5 million. The movie's staying power is a victory for Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove's Alcon, the same production company behind The Blind Side, another film that played to both general moviegoers and faith-based audiences.

In what’s shaping up to be possibly the slowest weekend of the year at the box office, the only bright spot was the new viral thriller Contagion, which topped the charts with an estimated $8 million on Friday. Warner Bros.’ PG-13 film, which was directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars a who’s who of Oscar winners and nominees, received mostly positive reviews and is on pace for a solid $22 million opening. But its success cannot distract from the box office’s overall dismal performance. The top 10 movies grossed an estimated $19.6 million on Friday — the lowest Friday figure so far this year.

Warner Bros' "Green Lantern" lit up Friday night with $21.6 million. Whether the future looks bright for the franchise first, however, is hard to say.

New Line/Warner Bros.’ Anthony Hopkins horror-exorcism pic The Rite topped the box office Friday, grossing an estimated $5.3 million from 3,022 theaters.

Film opens with $23.8 million to take the No. 1 spot. The intense Warner Bros. drama about bank robbers in an insular section of Boston earned rave reviews.

Warner Bros.' remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" topped the domestic boxoffice on Friday with an impressive first-day tally estimated at $15.8 million, setting the stage for a $30 million-plus haul through Sunday.