The debut of the Nicolas Cage science-fiction thriller ‘Knowing’ took top honors at the weekend box office, raking in some $24.8 million through Sunday morning, according to studio estimates.

The picture, released by privately held Summit Entertainment, knocked ‘Race to Witch Mountain’ out of the top spot, with the Disney film falling to fourth place with $13 million in ticket sales.

Two other new films – Viacom’s ‘I Love You, Man’ and ‘Duplicity’ from General Electric’s Universal Pictures – were in the second and third spots for the week, with totals of $18 million and $14.4 million, respectively.
Time Warner’s ‘Watchmen’ came in fifth at $6.7 million followed by ‘The Last House on the Left’ – a gorefest from Universal _ – with $5.9 million.

Rounding out the top 10 were ‘Taken’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ both from News Corp’s Fox; ‘Madea Goes to Jail’ from Lionsgate; and ‘Coraline’ from Focus Features, a unit of Universal.

‘Slumdog’ is still tops to date, though, with a total of $137.2 million while ‘Taken’ holds the runner-up spot at $133.1 million.
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