All About Steve, a critical bomb starring Bullock as a lovelorn crossword-puzzle expert, followed with $11.2 million, the best performance among three weak newcomers.
That marked a considerable drop from the $33.6 million launch of her previous hit The Proposal in June. All About Steve co-star Bradley Cooper did even better that month with the $45 million debut of his summer smash The Hangover.

But the new picture played in 2,251 theatres, about 900 less than either The Proposal, The Final Destination or The Hangover. It was also released at a time – the dying days of summer – when the studios are clearing out underperformers so they can focus on their awards-season hopefuls.
“We’re thrilled with the number,” said an official at 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp. Bullock also produced the movie, whose audience was about two-thirds female.

Inglourious Basterds slipped one place to No. 3 with $10.8 million, taking the three-week tally for Quentin Tarantino’s World War Two picture to $91 million. It needs just $17 million more to become his biggest film in North America, a title currently held by his 1994 breakthrough Pulp Fiction ($108 million).
The new film’s foreign total stands at $83 million, and it already ranks as Tarantino’s highest-grossing release in eight markets, including Germany, Russia and Turkey.

Basterds was co-financed by the closely held Weinstein Co and General Electric Co’s Universal Pictures.
Of the other two new releases, both targeted at male youngsters, Gamer opened at No. 4 with $9 million and Extract at No. 10 with just under $4.2 million.

Lionsgate’s Gamer stars Gerard Butler (300) as a heroic killer frantically reducing the population count. Miramax Films’ Extract, another workplace satire from Office Space director and Beavis And Butt-head creator Mike Judge, stars Jason Bateman and Mila Kunis.
Lionsgate is a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. Miramax is a unit of Walt Disney Co.