The cheery action comedy Zombieland led at the U.S. movie box office this weekend, bringing in $25 million, a quite decent performance for the traditionally slow period in cinema attendance between summer blockbuster season and the holiday blockbuster season.

The highly promoted anti-religion romantic comedy The Invention of Lying performed poorly in its first weekend, finishing fourth with $7.4 million in ticket sales. It ended up well back of the animated comedy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ($16.7 million) and a 3D rerelease of two old Pixar films–Toy Story and Toy Story 2 ($12.5 million).

–S. T. Karnick