Following not so far behind, really, is Warners’ “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole” which earned an estimated $16.3 million. Anthony D’Allesandro is calling the film a “bomb” along the lines of the recent “Cats and Dogs” sequel. That may be accurate compared to what family films like this usually make and in light an as yet unspecified large budget but it’s still within a couple of million of this weekend’s $50-70 million live-action hit.

While the books might have had an audience, something just seemed generally awry and the film lacked a clear premise for non-fans other than “owls fighting.” Whether or not Zack Snyder, whose early hits are receding in the memory of Hollywood, no doubt, gets to remain in the high end movie big leagues may now be largely dependent on what happens when his strange and zany looking action fantasy, “Sucker Punch,” comes out on 3/25/11.

Coming in at #3, and just a hair shy of the owl movie, is “The Town” which is showing some strong early awards season legs, dropping a mere 32.5% for an estimated second weekend showing of just over $16 million. More good news for Ben Affleck, whose been built up, torn down and is now being built up again, only to again, I’m sure, be torn down at the next opportunity. The teen no-sex comedy “Easy A” held up nicely, too. It dropped by a modest 39.7% and earned an estimated $10.7 million. That’s much better than it sounds when you consider that the film has already quintupled it’s very modest $8 million budget in domestic theaters.

There was a rare show of critic/consumer unity as two critically slammed comedies met some significant misfortune. The weekend’s third major new release, “You Again,” continued hugely talented actress Kristen Bell‘s prodigious bad breaks with a lackluster estimated $8.3 million, despite having Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, and even Betty White as back-up.

Still, Bell’s film was a smash compared to the once somewhat highly touted reinvention of the horny teenager genre, “The Virginity Hit.” The critically hated mock-reality teen sexer, which technically was deflowered weeks ago in a series of sneak previews theoretically intended to promote positive word of mouth, provided little satisfaction as it expanded into 700 theaters with a truly dismal per-screen average of $429. For comparison, only one film this week had a worse per-screen average, and that was the Afghanistan war documentary, “Restrepo,” which has been in theaters for 14 weeks. I feel pretty sure that those ill-advised “Still a Virgin?” billboards only mystified the masses and angered the kind of people who get angry about stuff like that.

The week’s best per-screen average, was the education documentary from Davis Guggenheim, “Waiting for Superman” which earned an average of over $35,000 in four theaters. Woody Allen’s latest, “You Will Meet a Tall Stanger, which is inspired by the belief that there is no supernatural dimension to existence, the trippy and cinephile-dividing “Enter the Void,” which is based on the premise that there might be, the near one-man-show for Ryan Reynolds, “Buried” — which will be going wider —  and the not-quite documentary, “Howl,” starring a soon-to-be-hugely famous James Franco, all did reasonably well-to-okay on the indie side of the street.

The smart money seems to be pretty positive that “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” will earn in the neighborhood of $20 million and so may end up winning the weekend. At least that’s what I’m reading via jolly Carl DiOrio and the more circumspect Ben Fritz.

The audience for the latest from Oliver Stone skews fairly older, not only because it’s a topical thriller from the bombastic but literate Stone, but because it’s a sequel to a hit movie that is — shockingly for some of us — old enough that 24 year-old co-star Shia LaBeouf was barely a toddler when it first came out. That may help with the film’s longevity since older audiences tend to take their time seeing a new movie. Also, a bit of extra publicity from Gekko-man Michael Douglas‘s well-publicized upbeat battle with cancer might add to awareness over the long term. The reviews, which also have a somewhat stronger effect on older viewers, are only meh-to-okay with somewhat better response from more blue-state-centric “top critics.”

“Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole” is also doing better with the “cream of the crop” crowd than the critical hoi polloi, but interest from regular folks hasn’t been what the makers of this $50-60 million 3D animated production have been hoping for. The film is PG rated, but many feel it is excessively dark and violent for the kids. That may make it truer to the popular books it’s drawn from, and it’s certainly no surprise given that this is from Zack Snyder of “Watchmen” and “300.” Still, this will get at least some boost from the those 3D premium prices and is expected to make, I guess, between $15-20 million, though I personally find the character designs pretty unappealing and I wonder if others feel the same way.

The gurus are not optimistic when it comes to “You Again.” We fans of Kristen Bell are, it seems, once again being forced to wonder about this hugely skilled young actress’s bad luck, first with the early cancellation of the “Veronica Mars” television series, then somehow being saddled with the only uninteresting part in the otherwise first-rate “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” and then to a series of roundly drubbed releases like this one, which is something considering the film’s rather amazing supporting cast.

Oddly, this comedy reunites her with Andy Fickman, the director of what I guess must be her best movie role so far, as the singing and dancing and unbelievably naive female lead of “Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical.” However, our own Jason Zingale’s very negative review is very much line with the majority of critics and audiences aren’t expected to like this one all that much better, with low expectations that still might end up covering its modest studio budget of $20 million. Still, no wonder Ms. Bell seems truly desperate to get that long discussed “Veronica Mars” movie off the ground.

“The Virginity Hit,” which has been in limited release, is expanding into 700 theaters this weekend. The mockumentary horny teenager flick had generated high hopes at one point and has been sponsored by Will Ferrell and his comedy partner Adam McKay, but those hopes have been scaled back once more people got a look at the thing, it seems. David Medsker roundly disliked it, but his slam is a love-letter compared to my Rotten Tomatoes pull quote of the week from Dustin Putnam:

Crass and detestable, a combination of American Pie, The Blair Witch Project and crap.

That, however, is not all because this weekend sees several notable limited releases. The highly buzzed and very well reviewed suspense one-man show for Ryan Reynolds and enormous cinematic challenge for director Rodrigo Cortés, “Buried,” opens in 11 theaters this weekend. There’s also the hugely divisive cinephile-bait, “Enter the Void,” a druggy fantasia about life after death from the ever controversial Gasper Noé, the acclaimed documentary about the should-be hot topic of education, “Waiting for Superman,” and two movies which I actually saw and reviewed myself, the free-speech docu-drama “Howl” starring James Franco as poet Allen Ginsberg and Woody Allen’s latest all-star outing, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” which I’m somewhat surprised to say I actually kind of recommend.

It pains me to start this this international (and Spanish subtitled) trailer for the latest comedy from Woody Allen. The Wood-man was a youthful hero of mine and “Manhattan,” “Broadway Danny Rose,” ‘Zelig,” “Sleeper” and several others of his films rank among my favorite comedies. Still, over the years his humor and also his cinematic artistry has mostly grown stale. A recent interview in which he seems to have an increasingly super-depressive view of existence  may offer some hint as to what’s going on, but I think it’s that making movies has become mostly a habit for him. In my view, it might have been better if he had taken a break to do something else — stand-up, maybe — years ago.

Unbelievable cast, maybe one line that made me half smile.

And now, the earlier, much funnier Woody Allen.

The really funny thing about this scene from “Annie Hall” is that, Marshall McLuhan might have been a great media theorist, but either Woody Allen and his co-writer Marshall Brickman wrote complete gibberish for him to say, or he flubbed his line pretty badly. “You mean my whole fallacy is wrong.” (?!) The thing is, no one ever seems to notice because the dialogue is nearly always drowned out by loud laughter.

H/t Rope of Silicon.