'Roommate' earns top box-office bunk with $15.6M

[February 07, 2011]  LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The college thriller "The Roommate" has moved into the top spot at the box office with a $15.6 million debut over a typically slow Super Bowl weekend as the NFL championship game preoccupies movie fans.

The Sony release features Leighton Meester as a psycho freshman who becomes obsessed with her new roomie (Minka Kelly).

The 3-D underwater cave adventure "Sanctum," whose producers include "Avatar" creator James Cameron, drew modest crowds and came in second with $9.2 million. Released by Universal, "Sanctum" is a survival story about explorers trapped underground in flooded caves during a monster storm.

The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, Anthony Hopkins' exorcism thriller "The Rite," fell steeply to sixth-place with $5.6 million. The Warner Bros. release raised its 10-day total to $23.7 million.

[Associated Press]

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