The weekend box office is… Despicable!

The Steve Carell-fronted Universal animated feature, Despicable Me, blew into the lead by a long shot this weekend, raking in just over $60 million in its debut bow, against a production budget of $69 million. Not bad!

Last week’s champ, Twilight Saga: Eclipse, fell off as expected following its very early in the week debut. Still, the teen angst vamp flick drew enough blood out of moviegoers to add another $33.4 million to its coffers domestically. That brings the flick’s total so far to $237 million domestically. Add in another $219 million from foreign markets as you have a tidy $456 million take on around 12 days, which isn’t bad for a movie that had a comparatively modest production budget of $68 million.

Predators was predictably disappointing, drawing only $25.3 million. Fortunately, they kept the budget to $40 million, which means it should make money for the studio. And after a month in release, Toy Story 3 finally slowed down a bit, falling to fourth place and drawing $22 million for the week. They’ve grossed $340 million domestically, $553 million with foreign sales added in, against a $200 million budget; not bad at all.

M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender came in with $17.1 million, good enough for fifth place, and reached $100 million domestically. With foreign markets adding in only an additional $10 million, unless something picks up soon, the studio will be lucky to break even on this $150 million budgeted movie.

The Adam Sandler-fronted Grown-Ups also managed to do respectably, adding $16.4 million for a total of $111 million against an $80 million budget.

Behind that, nothing else cracked the $10 million mark; Knight and Day remains a spectacular failure, drawing under $8 million this weekend and earning nearly $62 million to date against a $117 million budget that they’ll probably never quite make back, until DVD/Blu-Ray sales get added in.

Coming this weekend is the interesting-looking Inception, directed by Dark Knight’s Christopher Nolan; as well as Disney’s “ehh… whatever” release, Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Let’s face it: the best of the summer movies are pretty much already out, and we’re now into late-summer fare; there will be some nice mild hits, but I think most of the blockbusters are on the table already, along with a cozy box of Swisher Sweets. Overall, not a terrible summer; though many of the best-performing movies were not necessarily the ones everyone was looking toward.