Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables did…rather impressively. By that I mean audiences who this weekend invested in the action-adventure homage refused also to pay respects to Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Stallone’s ball-buster dropped with $35 million at 3,270 sites, while Pilgrim landed with $10.5 million at #5 at 2,818 sites. Ouch. No amount of marketing, fanaticism, or praise could help a movie that I guess no one was interested in seeing. For Stallone’s career, whether it be acting, writing or directing, this is his highest opening weekend ever. As is Scott Pilgrim’s for Wright, after the U.K. cult hits that made it big over here in the states, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. I can’t speak for The Expendables quite yet, but hopefully Pilgrim is as respected on DVD as Wright’s previous flicks.

At #2 was the little-buzzed-about Eat Pray Love, Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-seller starring Julia Roberts, with $23.7 million. Among Roberts’s acting catalog, this places somewhere between the openings of the two Oceans movies she did and February’s Valentine’s Day, but can still be expressed as stellar. Another one I can’t speak on behalf of, but a with a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes I could say critics weren’t too hot on it.

Third ranked The Other Guys scored another $18 million, down 49.4% and two spots from last weekend; $70.5 million ten-day total. And finally at #4 was Inception with $11.4 million, a for-sure great we can say is doing pretty incredibly.

Out of the top five-

• Sundance winner of dramatic World Cinema Grand Jury prize Animal Kingdom started with $64,100 at seven sites with an estimated $9,157 per-screen average, bested only by the $10,713 Expendables dragged in this weekend.
• Goro Miyazaki’s, son of Hayao, debut flick Tales from Earthsea bowed $20,100 at five sites.

Here are the box office results according to studio estimates Sunday-

1. 1. The Expendables…$35 million
2. 2. Eat Pray Love…$23.7 million
3. 3. The Other Guys…$18 million
4. 4. Inception…$11.4 million
5. 5. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World…$10.5 million
6. 6. Despicable Me…$6.7 million
7. 7. Step Up 3D…$6.6 million
8. 8. Salt…$6.4 million
9. 9. Dinner for Schmucks…$6.3 million
10. 10. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore…$4.1 million