Well, at least Cate Blanchett is having a good weekend, and in the grand scheme of things that's really all that matters. The House with a Clock in Its Walls easily took the top spot at the box office this weekend, ticking past expectations to take in $26.8 million. Eli Roth's PG-spookshow shared the top 3 spots with holdovers A Simple Favor—down only 35% in its second weekend to land at $10.4 million—and The Nun, which scared up another $10.2 million.

That's it for the good news this weekend, folks, because the box office was downright dismal for a certain trio of buzzed-about festival films. Fahrenheit 11/9, the new documentary from Michael Moore—not Roger Moore, as I wrote yesterday, apologies Mr. Bond—tanked from the beginning, landing well below an expected $5-6 million tally to take in $3.1 million. Audiences who happened to catch the doc seemed to love it—the film currently has an A CinemaScore—but that doesn't soothe the fact that 11/9 brought in $20 million less than Fahrenheit 9/11's opening weekend in 2004.

Meanwhile, both Life Itself and Assassination Nation couldn't crack the top ten in their first weekend in theaters; heck, Assassination Nation just barely cracked the $1 million mark. Director Sam Levinson's bloody black comedy—starring Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, and Abra as a crew of vengeful teenage girls—ended its debut weekend with $1.03 million.

And Life Itself, poor, innocent Life Itself, which director Dan Fogelman did no favors by striking back at across-the-board terrible reviews (not counting Weird Al Yankovic) with the ol' "for the fans of manipulative storytelling, not the critics of manipulative storytelling" routine, nabbed a not-fantastic $2.1 million.

Check out the weekend's top 10 estimates below, and come back next week to see if Smallfoot can leave prints at the box office.

Rank

Title

Weekend

Total

1.

The House with a Clock In Its Walls

$26,850,000

$26,850,000

2.

A Simple Favor

$10,400,000

$32,562,414

3.

The Nun 

$10,250,000

$100,895,307

4.

The Predator

$8,700,000

$40,435,122

5.

Crazy Rich Asians

$6,515,000

$159,439,483

6.

White Boy Rick

$5,000,000

$17,410,368

7.

Peppermint

$3,720,000

$30,332,559

8.

Fahrenheit 11/9

$3,101,000

$3,101,000

9.

The Meg

$2,350,000

$140,522,919

10.

Searching

$2,175,000

$23,115,344

a-simple-favor-blake-lively
Image via Lionsgate
the-nun-image
Image via Warner Bros.
the-predator-movie-image
Image via 20th Century Fox