In a rather blah weekend at the box office, the movie Takers ended up just ahead of The Last Exocism in a photo finish that was so messy I was wondering if any roadside assistance was going to be necessary in its wake. Takers raked in $20.5 million while Last Exorcism blasphemed its way to a $20.3 million weekend in the final tally.

Takers had a $20 million budget so that movie is sitting stable; however, Last Exorcism is a true example of indie filmmaking, with a budget of only $1.8 million, so even the second-place finish meant a return on investment of over 10:1.

That’s not bad, but the box office hit the doldrums after that, with no film even cracking the $10 million mark. Even the special edition re-release of Avatar barely took in $4 million now that it’s out on DVD anyway.

Will next weekend bring any relief? Not likely; George Clooney’s boring political piece, The American, looks uninspired; and the latest Robert Rodriguez thriller, Machete, is coming out too silent from the gate to gauge. Finally, the Drew Barrymore-Justin Long rom-com Going the Distance has a chance to do some business, but don’t expect any of these new films to set fire to the movie-going public.