And ‘The Hangover’ is the weekend winner!

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The final numbers are coming in. Thanks to a strong Sunday showing, ‘The Hangover’ won the weekend box-office derby, earning $45 million, which boosts the R-rated comedy into the No. 1 slot, edging out ‘Up,’ which hung on to make $44.3 million in its second weekend of release. If you look way-way-waaaay down, you can find ‘Land of the Lost’ hanging on to third place with a lowly $18.7 million.

We’ll have more to say about this later, but one thing once again seems obvious: If you have a really good movie with a strong concept and no movie stars going up against a really bad movie with a weak concept and a big movie star -- the good movie wins every time. The public can no longer be hypnotized into seeing a bad movie just by the presence of a A-list star.