And the Box Office Champion this week is...

As a studio exec joked to me Friday, "The Oscar race has been turned on its head". That's because Paramount's Jackass 3D aimed at the youth market not only earned twice the gross of Sony's Academy Awards-touted Facebook origins film starting its 3rd week Friday, but knocked it out of #1. Producers Johnny Knoxville's and Spike Jonze's stupid stunt pic directed by Jeff Tremaine earned a "B+" CinemaScore. Still the headline is that, despite the restriction of an "R" rating, it opened to a whopping Friday for the biggest single day ever in October because of the higher 3D ticket prices. That included $2.5M from midnight shows, also the most ever for October. Plus a healthy Saturday after the "first to see" subsided. Its $50M weekend take was the record for the biggest opening in the month of October (besting Scary Movie 3 which did $48.1M in October 2003 but was only 2D). Guess this shows Hollywood that movies don't need a script and a plot, right? With a budget of only $20M, the studio would have been more than happy with the $30M weekend it expected from the higher ticket prices from the 2,452 3D-equipped locations. (The first 2D Jackass opened with a $22.8M weekend and the 2D sequel to $29M.) Believe it or not, I'm told the filmmakers debated whether or not shooting a film in 3D would mess up their comedic timing.

1. Jackass 3D (Paramount) NEW [3,081 Theaters]
Friday $21.8M, Saturday $17M, Weekend $50M

2. Red (Summit) NEW [3,255 Theaters]
Friday $7.3M, Saturday $9.2M, Weekend $22.5M

3. The Social Network (Sony) Week 3 [2,868 Theaters]
Friday $3.3M, Saturday $4.6M, Weekend $11M, Cume $63.1M

4. Secretariat (Disney) Week 2 [3,072 Theaters]
Friday $2.8M, Saturday $4.1M, Weekend $9.5M (-25%), Cume $27.7M

5. Life As We Know It (Warner Bros) Week 2 [3,150 Theaters]
Friday $3.1M, Saturday $3.8M, Weekend $9.2M (-37%), Cume $29.1M

6. The Town (Warner Bros) Week 5 [2,368 Theaters]
Friday $1.2M, Saturday $1.8M, Weekend $4M, Cume $80.6M

7. Legend Of The Guardians (Warner Bros) Week 4 [2,502 Theaters]
Friday $1M, Saturday $1.9M, Weekend $4.2M, Cume $45.7M

8. My Soul To Take (Rogue/Universal) Week 2 [2,529 Theaters]
Friday $1M (-62%), Saturday $1.4M, Weekend $3.1M (-54%), Cume $12M

9. Easy A (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 5 [2,314 Theaters]
Friday $855K, Saturday $1.2M, Weekend $2.6M, Cume $52.3M

10. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Fox) Week 4 [2,405 Theaters]
Friday $715K, Saturday $1M, Weekend $2.2M, Cume $47.9M