The Academy Award-winning sibling directorial team of Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men) scored their first weekend box office winner ever with the spy spoof Burn After Reading, which grossed an estimated $19.4 million.  The R-Rated comedy averaged a solid $7,320 and its performance ranks as the top debut weekend ever for both the Coen Brothers and specialty distributor Focus Pictures.

Overall the weekend was up a whopping 34% from the same frame last year, reversing a downward box office trend over the past month and a half.  Four new films, all from specialty distributors, took the top four spots and accounted for a mammoth 77% of the total take of the top ten films.  Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys from Lionsgate finished a very close second with and earned an estimated $18 million, averaging an excellent $8,705 per venue and demonstrating once again Perry’s ability to reach the urban audience.

Overture Film’s Righteous Kill, which teamed Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, was a solid number three with an estimated $16.5 million.  The serial killer saga brought in the older fans with more than 69% of its audience over 25.  The other new film debuting last weekend was Picturehouse’s remake of Claire Booth Luce’s The Women, which has a sterling all-female cast and earned an estimated $10.1 million from an audience that was composed primarily of women over 25.  For the first time in history four new films had double digit debuts during the same weekend in September.

Last week’s winner, Bangkok Dangerous, which like Burn After Reading was directed by a sibling team (the Pang brothers), plummeted 69.2% and finished in the eighth spot.  Ben Stiller’s action filmsatire Tropic Thunder finished at number six, earning an estimated $4.1 million and bringing its cumulative to $102.9 million, making it the 15th film released this summer to pass the $100 million mark (Journey to the Center of the Earth, which is currently at $98 million, is likely to become the 16th and final summer movie to pass the century mark).

Meanwhile The Dark Knight remained in the top ten for the ninth straight week earning an estimated $4 million and bringing its domestic cumulative to $517 million.  Christopher Nolan’s new bat film has raked in nearly $450 million overseas and has surpassed Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End to become the #5 top-grossing movie of all time worldwide (not adjusted for inflation).  With its 2009 release (see “Dark Knight Re-Release in January”), Nolan’s film appears likely to surpass the billion dollar mark worldwide.