The Devil looked awfully familiar...

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

Peter casts a sci-fi superband ensemble.

The weekend box office horserace is a photo finish between the brothers behind No Country for Old Men, Atlanta’s entrepreneurial Gospel-infused maverick and a couple of old guys mailing it in. And the winner appears to be The Coen Brothers and Burn After Reading (Focus), although it is very close, and I cannot rule out a win for Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys (Lionsgate).

Coming off of the worst weekend at the box office since September 2003, the movie business could use a needle of adrenaline to the heart (a la Uma Thurman in <em>Pulp Fiction</em>) and, although business will improve, there is probably no stealth blockbuster in the cards this weekend.

It was a rough weekend to be an exhibitor as business, on one of the traditionally worst weekends of the year, was worse than usual. According to official studio estimates the Top 12 movies managed to generate only $51.61M (still, better than the $44.4M I projected Friday night), making this the worst weekend for Hollywood in five years.

The first weekend after Labor Day is traditionally, one of, if not the, slowest movie weekend of the year. But this year, business is even worse than expected.

Tropic Thunder (Dreamworks/Paramount) has clinched another box office crown, becoming only the sixth R-rated movie since 2000 to win three straight weekends.

The Dark Knight (Warner Bros) will soar past $500M sometime on Sunday, and will have banked about $505M by Tuesday morning.

Labor Day is a dumping ground for bad movies, but this year seems more toxic than usual. Three of the four new wide releases--Babylon A.D. (Fox), Disaster Movie (Lionsgate) and College (MGM)--were not screened for critics, while Traitor, the Don Cheadle thriller from Overture, has managed just a 54 percent Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.