Going into this weekend, there were some people who believed Sony’s remake of Total Recall would give The Dark Knight Rises a run for its money. Those people were wrong. With an estimate of $36.4 million, TDKR claimed its third straight weekend at number one while Total Recall barely topped the debut of the Arnold Schwarzenegger original… back in 1990.

Even with Sony’s Total Recall remake now in the mix, it looks like The Dark Knight Rises will have no trouble holding on to number one bragging rights for a third straight weekend. The trouble is, with numbers this low, no one has any real reason to brag. TDKR earned an estimated $10.4 million on Friday towards what should equal $35 million this weekend. That means trouble for Sony. The studio’s Total Recall remake opened Friday with an estimated $9.2 million from 3,601 locations and is now expected to earn around $25 million through Sunday. That’s about what the Arnold Schwarzenegger original realized for its own 1990 debut… not adjusted for inflation. The weekend’s final new release, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, also opened on the low end of expectations with an estimated $5.8 million from 3,391 locations. The third entry in the kid-lit franchise is projected to earn $17 million for the weekend – lower than both of its Wimpy Kid predecessors.  We’ll have full details tomorrow.

Do you hear that?  That’s the sound of new images from four 20th Century Fox movies:

• Neighborhood Watch – Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, and Richard Ayoade star in the alien invasion comedy.
• Life of Pi – Ang Lee is directing the adaptation of Yann Martel‘s fantasy adventure novel with Suraj Sharma in the lead.
• Ice Age: Continental Drift – Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, and Queen Latifah reprise their characters in the fourth entry in the animated series.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days – Zachary Gordon, Steve Zahn, and Robert Capron are back to depict more of the awkward adventures of middle schooler Greg Heffley

Images after the break.