Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail dominated the weekend box office with an estimated three-day total of $41.1 million thanks to an astounding $20,236 per theater average, which puts it in the top 40 openings ever in per venue gross.  Perry’s domestic comedies have often been underestimated, but this strong opening during the typically slow Oscar weekend should raise a lot of eyebrows.  Perry has demonstrated an ability to reach an audience that other filmmakers can’t, in this case older women—and the success of Madea Goes to Jail, which was aided by a savvy cable TV advertising campaign, boosted total box office revenues 30% over the same weekend last year, giving Hollywood another big win in 2009.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): Feb. 20 - 22, 2009

Madea got some help from a couple of strong holdover titles.  Taken, the kidnapping thriller starring Liam Neeson, continued its extraordinary performance, earning an estimated $11.4 million and dropping just 40% during its fourth weekend, and Henry Sellick’s stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline was close behind with a total of $11 million in its third weekend.  Coraline dropped only 25.4% and moved up from fourth place to third.  Taken has earned over $95 million so far and is sure to go over the $100 million mark by next weekend, while Coraline, which has earned $53.4 million in just 17 days, is demonstrating the kind of legs that could carry it to the century mark as well.

The one holdover that didn’t do well was last week’s winner, Friday the 13th.  The horror remake that dropped 81%, one of the steepest second week declines in modern box office history.  On the positive side of the ledger Slumdog Millionaire continues to creep up the charts moving from number nine last week to number five.  Whether it wins “Best Picture” tonight or not, Slumdog Millionaire will cross the $100 million threshold during the next few days.   Other Oscar-nominated films including The Reader, The Wrestler, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Milk all contributed to another strong weekend box office performance as did a couple of long-running films that didn’t get nominations, the surprise hit Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, which has become the highest-grossing film directed by the iconic Eastwood.

On Friday Warner Bros. announced that The Dark Knight had gone over $1 billion dollar mark worldwide joining a select class of only four films that includes Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.  The Dark Knight’s total was at $997 million before the studio re-released the film on January 22nd.  Warners did not indicate exactly when the film hit ten digits, but since its worldwide total is now listed at $1,001,082,160, more than $1 million over the billion dollar mark, it was likely several weeks ago.