What movie won the weekend box office battle?

Since a summer cold prevented me from making my usual trek to the movie theater over the weekend, I can't weigh in as a critic on which new movies were good, bad and/or ugly. I can tell you that at this point in the summer, the competition is really tight.

This past weekend saw the opening of what is arguably the last of the big-budget summer blockbusters, Neil Blomkamp's science fiction drama Elysium. Everyone was watching to see if we'd add another blockbuster to the D.O.A. list - or if the film would have a decent showing in a season that's seen some major disappointments for the movie studios. Last week I mentioned that I thought Elysium would win the box office, and it appears I was correct - though the film did not do as well as predicted.

According to the most recent numbers, Elysium took in $30.5 million in its opening weekend. That's good enough for first place, but it's probably not quite good enough for the Sony, which had "hoped" Elysium would make at least $35 million. It isn't a bomb, though, so let's keep things in perspective. Clearly there's an audience for this movie, and hopefully that audience will include me if I can ever stop sneezing and coughing enough to make it to the cineplex.

So, now that we know the top spot, let's take a look at how some of this weekend's other debut movies fared. The Jennifer Aniston/Jason Sudeikis raunchy comedy We're the Millers did really well, coming in at number two for the weekend with an estimated take of $26.6 million domestically. Despite fair-to-poor reviews, We're the Millers had an A- CinemaScore. That tells me that maybe this movie is actually somewhat funny, even though the critics didn't like it. I'm reconsidering my decision not to see it.

The other two big movie debuts this weekend didn't fare so well: Disney's Planes grossed $22.5 million and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters only managed $14.6 million. These two movies finished third and fourth at the weekend box office, respectively. Considering that Planes was originally supposed to be a direct-to-DVD movie though, I'd say Disney did pretty well releasing it in theaters.

I saw none of these movies. Yes, I'm bitter and feeling left out, so let's discuss what, if anything, you guys saw! Did anyone catch Elysium? If so, what did you think?

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