Newbie distributor Open Road Films has claimed its first number one opening with the wolf vs. man thriller The Grey.  From 3,185 locations, The Grey took in an estimated $20 million, or well above the mid-teens that was projected.  Second place was claimed by Underworld Awakening, pushing the adaptation of Janet Evanovich’s bestselling novel, One For the Money, into third.

Underworld Awakening had no trouble topping a crowded field of new or expanding releases this weekend. Nine years after the action-horror series launched, Underworld 4 took in an estimated $25.4 million from 3,078 locations for the second-highest opening weekend in the franchise’s history. Red Tails also had reason to be happy with its second-place showing while returns for the week’s three other highly-touted features were more modest.

In terms of box office numbers, January keeps offering up pleasant surprises.  This week, the big winner is Underworld Awakening with an estimated $9.4 million from 3,078 locations.  While not an unexpected first-place victory, part four in Screen Gems’ franchise is on track to earn about 15% more than the last installment, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, saw on its first weekend back in January of 2009.  And unlike 2010, when No Strings Attached was the only major new release, there are plenty of other titles crowding into theatres this weekend.  George Lucas’s Red Tails is at number two with $6 million from 2,512 venues – a better start for the WWII drama than would be suggested by the twenty-plus years it took to open the film.  After a month in limited release, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close expanded to 2,630 locations and took in $3.2 million.  The only film that is not meeting or exceeding expectations is Relativity’s Haywire.  After earning an estimated $2.9 million from 2,439 on Friday, the Steven Soderbergh drama will have trouble topping the $8 million weekend mark set by the studio.  Details and analysis tomorrow.

I’m a big fan of vampire movies.  In fact, it takes a really craptastic film involving vampires for me to not at least enjoy myself a little.  There’s something sexy, badass, uber-violent, and just ridiculously cool about the whole mythology of vampires.  And who wouldn’t want to be immortal?  Or maybe that’s just me going through an existential crisis about my own mortality right now, but I think being immortal would kick serious ass (even if you had to “feed” on the occasional human, the world is filled with douche bags).