No surprises here as Marvel Avengers Assemble once again tops the chart but American Pie: Reunion also posts a very healthy total in its opening weekend.

Note: Due to my usual source, The Guardian, not updating figures just yet, I am unable to bring you full site counts on running totals this week. Hopefully normal service will resume next week.

1.  Avengers Assemble W/E: £8,121,916

2.  American Pie: Reunion W/E: £6,334,539

3. The Lucky One W/E: £1,159,435

4. Beauty and the Beast 3D W/E: £685,024

5.  Safe W/E: £679,716

6.  Salmon Fishing in the Yemen W/E: £641,051

7. The Hunger Games W/E: £346,807

8. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists W/E: £318,039

9. Silent House W/E: £214,731

10. Mirror Mirror W/E: £207,319

Source: Rentrak

With an over £15 million total in its opening frame it would have taken a massive drop in revenue for Marvel Avengers Assemble to be knocked off the top spot after just 1 week and indeed this didn’t happen though the £8 million total does look a little anemic against last week. However, scratch beneath the surface and you will see that with £2.5 million taken on Thursday last week, obviously only a 3-day total is included this week, then suddenly a drop of a bit over a third doesn’t seem all that bad. What you also have to bear in mind is the near £30 million total which has been taken to date, an extraordinary total which has very handily beaten all the other Marvel studio films released so far in the UK. This drop-off is also impressive given the fact that many fanboy projects are inherently front-loaded, they (including me on this one, and twice last weekend no less) rush out to check the film out leaving the following weekend usually looking a little weaker as a result. Here though, the sure-fire combination of repeat business and genuinely terrific word-of-mouth have led this to a total which is only going to look more impressive week-on-week, especially with competition which is starting to have the stink of bad buzz opening this week, and nothing truly “four quadrant” coming until Men In Black 3 in a couple of weekends time.

Following up is an impressive over £6 million opening for American Pie: Reunion which did have 2 days of previews but looks to have bettered the opening of every Pie film leading up to it, and next to its opening weekend in the US, it seems like UK audiences were more willing to go in for another go which in fairness has had all-encompassing marketing from Universal, including most of the main cast appearing on various UK chat shows and in magazines all over the place. This is likely to be more front-loaded than many in the chart at the moment but its worth noting that there aren’t any out and out comedies coming until What To Expect When You’re Expecting comes in a couple of weeks time, indeed the same weekend as MIB3. The lure of a Johnny Depp comedy could hurt this over the next weekend but that film is such a hard one to really gauge the Box Office that American Pie may well perform better than many think.

Our next new entry opens at 3rd and sees a considerable drop in takings as the Zac Eforn starring The Lucky One takes a little over £1 million which doesn’t look too impressive given the extra 2 days of previews its had to boost its takings. It came out on an awfully difficult week where any noise it tried to make was drowned out by a blockbuster roaring and a big comedy bringing in as many women as men. Nicolas Sparks adaptations are usually a sure thing, and this may like The Vow (not Sparks but it may as well have been) earlier this year turn out to be a sleeper but this wasn’t the best weekend for the film to release at all and has certainly suffered as a result, and things will only get more difficult as the weeks go on.

Up next is a 3D re-release which for once doesn’t bust too many blocks as Disney rather quietly released Beauty & The Beast in a 3D post-convert. Despite having been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars 20 years ago, this doesn’t have the longevity of many of Disney’s films and indeed looking at this performance next to how the 3D Lion King did in October last year would make for startling reading, that film opening with over £2.5 million in its opening week, besting Beauty by over 3 times. I’d wager the upcoming 3D release of Finding Nemo will likely do better than this also with that film as well as Lion King offering far broader appeal than Beauty despite its obvious quality.

Yet another new entry takes root at 5th as the first Stath injection of the year starts off with an opening weekend which very nearly upset the aforementioned Beauty to take 4th place. Other Statham films have opened stronger than this and I’d imagine Momentum are a little disappointed but on an opening weekend with simply so much other product out there, Safe should be thankful to be a part of the conversation though it must be said that Momentum really did try with the marketing on this one and will be hoping that the fact that this actually got some pretty strong reviews translates into OK enough business on the 2nd weekend. Momentum themselves have the potential crossover hit The Raid coming next weekend so any ammo they are going to give Safe better be spent in this upcoming frame for sure as soon, they will have bigger fish to fry.

With so much fresher product out there, it’s no surprise that Salmon Fishing In The Yemen drops a fair few places this week but does manage to drop less than 50% week-on-week, with a near £5 million total which Lionsgate will likely be pretty damn happy with. With a lot of new competition its not surprising to see The Hunger Games dipping over 50% week-on-week as it nears the end of its theatrical life but hey, it’s now the highest grossing literary adaptation of all time in the US Box Office charts so that’s yet another feather in its cap. Taking a similar dip is Pirates! which did have Beauty 3D offering competition for both kids product and 3D screens and likely was hurt by both factors.

StudioCanal provide the last new entry for the week as their horror Silent House doesn’t spark off in the way recent entries in the genre have been doing at the UK Box Office but then it’s also fair to say that marketing for the film was pretty thin on the ground and with no “buzz” stars or filmmakers involved, at least in a mainstream sense, this would always struggle. They’ll probably have a decent time of it for the home video market however. StudioCanal also feature with the last entry this week as Mirror Mirror makes a likely swansong after an OK but not blazing by any means theatrical life. I for one hope it does better on the small screen.

Moving onto the new combatants and the biggest release will likely be Warner’s Dark Shadows which will have to hope the marketing connects with the public considering some of the advance word which has been coming out around the film over the last couple of days, Lionsgate’s heavily promoted How I Spent My Summer Vacation will be hoping that the UK public are OK with Mel Gibson again, Entertainment release Piranha 3DD which could really go either way, both critically and commercially, at this point after the surprise critical hit which was Alexandre Aja’s Piranha in Summer 2010 and Paramount release the well-liked enough Jeff Who Lives At Home which offers a bit more of an indie spirited alternative for those who want it also. I’d expect all of these to hit the chart though Jeff would be the question mark, and if people aren’t ready for Mel, Vacation could turn into a bit of a bomb too. We shall see next week!