The main competition? The Rock’s action flick, Mysterious Island 2; a 3D version of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace; and the Denzel Washington-Ryan Reynolds action-thriller, Safe House.

Given the nature of the weekend, my bet’s on The Vow to surprise a lot of people. The most romantic film, on the most romantic weekend of the year, will prevail.

Personally, I’ve seen Woman In Black and it was good fun, even though the scariest moments came from the fake-outs, not the actual hauntings themselves. Still, it was well-acted and good fun. No opinion on Chronicle as I haven’t seen it yet.

Both movies took in a hair over $8 million on Friday, with Chronicle showing a very slight lead in the early going.

Spielberg’s version will emphasize Moses as a warrior and military leader, according to early online reports. Amazingly, 3D presentation is not currently being contemplated, despite the uniqueness that could afford key scenes, especially the Red Sea crossing.

There almost certainly will be no musical numbers, and therefore no chance to include a junior drum set or anything like that. But pairing one of Tinseltown’s greatest directors with the story of one of Judaism’s greatest heroes is the sort of chemistry that made The Ten Commandments such a winner. Can lightning strike twice?

Then there’s Joyful Noise, a Queen Latifah-Dolly Parton church-based thing. Doesn’t seem like something that’ll catch on, especially since I’ve yet to spot a single trailer for it.

Finally there’s Contraband, a Mark Wahlberg drug war thriller that has him wearing a Scorpion EXO or something. I don’t know. Who pays attention to these things? Anti-War On Drugs movies happen four or five times a year as part of the Hollywood propaganda machine and all that changes is the cast, really. Yawn.

And again, it’s getting no push from the studios; I’ve seen zero trailers.

So, it looks like another ho-hum weekend. At least Underworld Awakening isn’t that far off.

The film breathed some life into an otherwise flagging post-holiday box office which saw the second-ranked movie, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, grab a mere $19.8 million; however, it’s been out a month now so that’s not bad. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows drew $13.6 million, while Girl With the Dragon Tattoo drew $11.6 million, while the Chipmunks movie added $9.5 million to round out the top five.

Devil Inside was the sole new release of the weekend.

I suppose out of pure desperation some of these movies will do okay, but flicks like John Carter and a movie version of 21 Jump Street don’t do much for me. The next major release that raises my interest at all comes out in late March, when The Hunger Games jumps from print to the silver screen. And I’m not even sure about that one.

Sure, by May the summer blockbuster season starts and then things get interesting again. The Joss Whedon-directed Avengers movie, to start, looks promising. Dark Shadows might be fun. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter holds potential. And July should be huge, with the relaunched Amazing Spider-Man movie franchise, the final Dark Knight movie, and Ice Age: Continental Drift, since I can’t ever get enough of Scritch. That trio could spawn a lot of gifts for a man’s office in secondary marketing alone.

But until July, it’s a fairly dismal list. Even some of the sequels scheduled look boring.

So maybe Amy and Rory can move to the US and go hunting for dining room furniture Los Angeles-style. Or not.

That much is confirmed, and Moffatt has promised that Smith will gain at least one new companion in the second half of the second series, but is remaining mum as to any hints of that companions gender, as well as any other details.

What is not officially confirmed, but highly rumored, is that Smith may exit the show soon, as well. Some say this could happen as early as the end of series seven, the upcoming 2012 season.

All these exits raise the question of whether the actors will be involved in the much-rumored Doctor Who feature film BBC is hoping to launch, or whether their exits are designed to allow for the new Doctor and companions to be in place by the timeframe of the feature film’s release.

Time will tell. Especially with The Doctor.

First comes The Adventures of Tintin, a Steven Spielberg production that’s part Indiana Jones and part Toy Story. About the only thing I like about it, however, is that the script duties were handled by Steven Moffatt, current showrunner of Doctor Who.

Then there’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the first US movie made from the Steig Larssen yawner of a trilogy. Sure, everyone’s bought it, but how many people have actually read this boring police procedural? It’s one of the least thrilling thrillers I’ve ever attempted to read. So, no, the film doesn’t excite me.

Finally, there’s the predictable liberal Animal Planet-friendly family comedy, We Bought a Zoo. Yeah, great. And instead of anyone actually funny, it stars Matt Damon. Whatever.

None of these are sequels and they are still epic fails.

Worse off was the third Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, Chipwrecked. Despite boasting more screen time for Jason Lee, who was barely present in the second installment as Dave Seville, the movie took second place with $23.5 million domestically and $14 million in foreign markets for a total of $37.5 million… again well behind previous installments, both of which drew in the $40+ million range on their opening weekends.

Sensing a pattern here?

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL is another story. The film, budgeted at $140 million, drew only $13.6 million this weekend, but only appeared on a paltry 400+ screens. It boasted the healthiest per-screen average of the weekend, drawing over $30K per screen. And with $68.2 million in foreign receipts already, the film hasn’t yet “gone into wide release” in the US and has already made $81.8 million.

So, it’s doing well.

Nothing else broke the $10 million mark, and only last weekendd’s champ, the multi-star rom-com, New Year’s Eve, even came close with $7.4 million. After that, all other films couldn’t even reach $5 million.

Happy Feet 2 did okay, thought, considering the movie casting its shadow over the weekend. The animated sequel debuted drawing $21.2 million. The much-hyped Immortals took third place with $12 million and change and still hasn’t come close to making its $75 million budget back. Adam Sandler’s JACK AND JILL drew $11 million in fourth place, while PUSS IN BOOTS, a spinoff of SHREK, drew $10 million.

Early indicators are that BREAKING DAWN Part 1 will dominate the long Thanksgiving Day weekend as well.

It’s been quite a while since Murphy has been relevant on the comedy front, however. Between choosing bad projects like BOWFINGER and lots of innocuous family films that were good for what they were, but were not laugh-out-loud funny, Murphy’s appearance in TOWER HEIST looks like it could be part of a major comeback for him, a return that makes him relevant as Hollywood’s erstwhile King of Comedy.

Frankly, I’d welcome it. Too many comic actors have come and gone, ripping off Murphy’s basic act. But no one does Murphy like Murphy himself. It’s time for the master to best his students

Now, am I saying I want him to return to having every other word coming out of his mouth being a profanity? Or that he should wear cool t-shirts from foulmouthshirts.com?

No, not necessarily.

But he’s also been perhaps a bit too cautious in that area of late. If he can capture the witty anger of his youth, without necessarily all of the foul language, that’d be a great mix.

But am I ready for Murphy to return to being a king of comedy? You bet. Long live the king!

Paranormal Activity 3, however, did cruise to an easy second place win, taking in $19 million on the weekend and likely a strong Halloween Monday on the way.

From the extreme to the extremely disappointing, SF action flick IN TIME finished just barely around $12 million, well below expectations and what they needed to make their budget back. The folks who put this one together will need to be wearing northface jackets to bear the chilly reception they’ll get at their next pitch meeting. Yikes!

Nothing else came near the $10 million weekend box office threshold.