Disney's family film The Game Plan topped the weekend box office for the second week in row grossing an estimated $16.3 million, but its victory was clouded by the fact that the total take for the top ten films was down a whopping 37% from the same weekend last year and 31% from this frame in 2005.  The film that was supposed to take the box office crown, the Farrelly Brothers/Ben Stiller remake of The Heartbreak Kid, brought in just $14 million thanks to a very modest average of just $4,345 per theater.

But the biggest disappointment of the weekend was the Fox/Walden Media's The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, a kid-targeted fantasy movie based on a highly respected novel by Susan Cooper.  Despite appearing in about as many theaters as The Game Plan and The Heartbreak Kid, The Seeker earned only an estimated $3.725 million thanks to a pitiful $1,185 per venue average.  Clearly The Seeker lost the family audience to Disney's The Game Plan, and appears unlikely to make much of a mark at the box office.  It will have to do well on DVD to earn back its cost, and it may skew too young to be able to attain cult film status on DVD, but time will tell.  While Walden Media scored a huge hit with its family friendly Chronicles of Narnia movie (released by Disney), The Seeker doesn't appear that it has any chance of even approaching the $38 million domestic take of Matthew Vaughn's film of Neil Gaiman's Stardust.  Although The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Narnia, and the Harry Potter films have all been box office juggernauts, other more modestly budgeted fantasy films like Stardust ($70 million) and The Seeker ($40 million) have not been able to duplicate their success.  It should be interesting to see if New Line's The Golden Compass, which has a blockbuster budget of $205 million (and debuts in December), will be able to establish a new major fantasy film franchise.

With no horror movie competition, Resident Evil: Extinction managed to show some stumpy 'legs,' declining just 46% during its third weekend while earning an estimated $4.3 million, which brings its cumulative to $43.5 million.  Its fourth place finish this weekend looks good, but that's misleading because this was such a dismal frame overall. Still, it's not out of the running for the highest grossing film in its franchise yet, though competition in the horror category will heat up as it gets closer to Halloween (30 Days of Night debuts October 19th).