Weekend Box Office: Aliens, Werewolves, and More Aliens

It was a supernatural weekend at the box office, with a movie about werewolves and two about aliens. But did the similarities hurt any of the films vying for the top spot?

It certainly didn't hurt the sci-fi epic "Battle: Los Angeles" as the alien invasion film grossed a respectable $36 million. Considering the budget for "Battle: Los Angeles" was a fairly cheap $70 million, the movie looks to be in good shape going forward. The strong opening numbers might drop off severely in the second week, though, as critics weren't too kind to the film and audiences were indifferent.

The second alien movie opening this weekend was the 3D animated feature "Mars Needs Moms!" which drew a measly $6.8 million...and that's with the added boost of 3D ticket sales, which made up about two-thirds of all sales.

Critics were unimpressed by the movie, but it certainly wasn't panned, and audiences thought fairly well of it too. However, the maternal title might have warded off some older demographics and limited the audiences to parents and their younger children. With a budget of $150 million (yikes), the movie has a lot of ground to make up.

Finally, the "Twilight"-esque "Red Riding Hood" opened as well, to a decent $14.1 million. The movie, which features Amanda Seyfried as a girl who falls in love with a hunted werewolf, is clearly inspired by the "Twilight" series and was likely hoping to draw some of that crowd to theaters, but it looks like they were all too busy staring dreamily at pictures of Robert Pattinson.

Animated western homage "Rango" made another strong showing in its second week with $23 million, a drop-of of about 30% from last week's opening.