It was inevitable, as Laremy called on Friday, that something was going to knock Happy Feet from the top of the box-office heap this weekend -- the only question was, which movie was gonna do it? Laremy called that one wrong, though I'd have guessed the same as him, too: I wouldn't have seen Mel Gibson's Mayan-language historical action bloodbath/familial love story ending up as the one movie audiences were most excited about checking out, but that's what happened: Apocalypto [my review] took in $14.1 million from Friday through Sunday to take first place in the box-office race.

That's a fairly low number for a weekend like this (what with folks popping, theoretically, into the movies after a day out at the mall holiday shopping), and low numbers were the order of the weekend: The Holiday [my review], at No. 2, made only a slender $13.5 million. By comparison with those numbers, the $12.7 million take of Happy Feet [my review] and the $8.8 million of Casino Royale [my review], at No. 3 and 4, still look pretty darn healthy. (And though Blood Diamond [my review] came in only at No. 5 on its debut weekend, its haul of $8.5 million doesn't look bad at all, particularly considering that it was on fewer than two-thirds the screens of Royale.)

It's worth noting, though, that even with its phenomenal performance so far, Royale has not yet earned back its estimated $150 million budget. With its domestic take edging up on $130 million, there's no question that the film will more than recoup its production costs by the time its final worldwide tally is added up, but a look at those numbers prompts a look at the budgets of the week's other films. There's absolutely no reason why, for instance, The Holiday, a contemporary film set in the real world and requiring no FX or action setpieces, should cost anywhere near the $85 million it did ... particularly not when the beautifully exotic and intensely exciting Apocalypto cost less than half that. (Where'd an extra $40 million go on The Holiday? To the care and feeding of movie stars ... who are only worth it if they earn their keep, which isn't going to happen here.) Apocalypto will eventually pay for itself; The Holiday will have a much harder time doing so. And it all makes Borat [my review] look like even more of a winner than it already is: as of this weekend it has earned more than $120 million ... and cost only $18 million.

No film this year, however, is likely to outpace Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest [my review], which cost a staggering $225 million, making it probably the most expensive movie ever made, by a long shot. But it's rolling in more than a billion bucks worldwide, and adding more by the minute with its record-breaking DVD release. A pirate's life, indeed.

(Box office numbers via Box Office Mojo.)

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