"30 Days of Night" carved a bloody path to the weekend box-office title. The vampire horror flick easily dispatched Reese Witherspoon's politically-tinged "Rendition," "Gone Baby Gone" and Halle Berry & Benicio Del Toro's "Things We Lost in the Fire." In fact, out of those three new movies, Ben Affleck's directing debut GBG was the only one that didn't outright flop (it had the 3rd highest per-screen avg. in the Top 10). And notice which films finished #2 and #3 ... "Why Did I Get Married?" and "The Game Plan." Both movies are holdovers that are lighter in tone than the rest of the downbeat Top 10, a slate of movies that includes kidnapped kids, dead kids and vampire blood-infected kids. Yeesh.

But the solid box-office performance of both pictures should also be a signal to Hollywood that there is a healthy audience for movies with black actors/actresses that aren't violent or exploitative. Tyler Perry's been successful for a few years now, but "Why Did I Get Married?" is his first film without his Madea alter-ego .. and it shows he has the range and the charisma as an actor to lure audiences. The numbers speak for themselves. Perry's movie had a better per-screen avg. than any movie except for the 3-D re-release of Tim Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas.'

FYI - here's Jeffrey & Alison's review:

Same goes for The Rock and "The Game Plan." I posted a few weeks ago about how this comedy could do for his career what "The Pacifier" did for Vin Diesel's flagging career. Four weeks after its debut, its still in the Top 3.

And yes, I know Halle Berry's movie tanked this weekend, but considering its received mostly positive reviews (though Jeffrey & Alison disagreed), "Things We Lost in the Fire's" biggest problem this weekend is that are simply too many adult dramas in the marketplace right now. That's the studio's fault, not hers.

Anyway, let's see if studio chiefs wise up and start sending some of the top-shelf scripts out there to a more diverse group of actors. Looks like it would make sound business sense.