Around this same time last year, Tyler Perry was beating George Clooney in a battle at the box office. Now the Sexiest Man Alive is having his day.

This past weekend, cineplexes were kept busy with a handful of new releases. Although each film had a chance of reaching #1, Burn After Reading - starring Clooney, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand - emerged as the eventual winner. But the news wasn’t so bad for the other three contenders. Theatergoers clearly starving for fresh material placed all four wide release entries into the chart’s four top slots.

The Coen Brothers film, their first since No Country for Old Men, took in $19.1 million over the last three days. That was the best debut the directing duo has ever had. Meanwhile, Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys was making news of its own. Although the film failed to break the $20 million mark (as Tyler’s last several films did), the movie earned the best per screen average of any entry in the Top Ten.

1. Burn After Reading, Focus Features, $19,128,001 (avg. $7215)
2. Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys, Lionsgate, $17,381,218 (avg. $8397)
3. Righteous Kill, Overture Films, $16,288,361 (avg. $5168)
4. The Women, Picturehouse, $10,115,121 (avg. $3415)
5. Tropic Thunder, Dreamworks/Paramount, $4,183,405 (avg. $1429)
6. The House Bunny, Sony, $4,154,427 (avg. $1504)
7. The Dark Knight, Warner Bros., $4,128,153 (avg. $1884)
8. Bangkok Dangerous, Lionsgate, $2,592,656 (avg. $977)
9. Traitor, Overture Films, $2,131,639 (avg. $1058)
10. Death Race, Universal, $2,056,415 (avg. $1025)

(You can review last week’s numbers here.)