A brand new season means dumping grounds for movies and a period where box office is deflated. This weekend won't be the exception and will continue to do similar numbers from the years beforehand. Overheard 2 is once again poised to win a 3rd weekend with very weak openers and exceptional WOM. Should it win again, it will be the only film this year to win 3 weekends in a row and the first since Inception spent 4 weeks at #1 last year. Theaters have once again scheduled this in the biggest theaters and pre-sales still have this comfortably in front of all other releases. The first weekend of September usually doesn't see great holds since the majority of students go back to school this weekend. In the past few years, holdovers that landed at #1 ended up falling more than 35%. It's possible that Overheard 2 might have a great drop under 25% but its weekdays will take a hit so this seems unlikely. Still, Overheard 2 will easily win the weekend with no real contender to give it a run for its money. Weekdays this week have been steady with a Tuesday drop of just 10% from last week. A 32% drop would leave it with $436,000 for the weekend and about 2.57m total. It already passed the first movie on Monday and has broken the 2m mark since then. 3m is happening and a total near X-Men: First Class (3.325m) might be in its future.

Thai horror movie Laddaland opens this weekend hoping to give people a good scare. Its IIB rating will help as this will allow teenagers to get in. Surprisingly, this has picked up the most theaters out of all the openers this week but pre-sales haven't been great. While Bad Teacher is expected to do better in walk-ins, this has managed to spook more theaters into showing this with Broadway, UA and MCL chains all having 50% or more of their theaters screening it. At this point, Laddaland has the advantage with more theaters and Bad Teacher hasn't shown any signs of picking up in business. One drawback is that Laddaland is in Thai and foreign language movies usually don't do well here but horror movies are more immune to this factor as REC 2 opened to $198,000 last year and Kidnapped drew $71,500 in May. $180,000 for the weekend would be a good start here.

Bad Teacher will prey on capitalizing from the Horrible Bosses' train from last week. Appropriately released at the start of the school year, the studio hopes children but especially teenagers flock to the theaters to make this a hit. This doesn't have the theater count like Horrible Bosses did last week though and pre-sales haven't been good. I would say that its pre-sales are worse than Horrible Bosses last week. How much of that is due to the brand new school year is unknown but it will have some walk-in support so its gross shouldn't be inexplicably bad. Opening with $161,000 will be an OK start but expecting a grand total near Horrible Bosses is asking for too much given the mixed reviews and competition next week.

Cowboys & Aliens will follow-up its disappointing weekend with a huge drop after weak sales have caused theaters to give this smaller screens. In a couple of theaters, this has moved from the biggest theater to the smallest one after anemic ticket sales from last weekend and new openers. Scheduling still has this on one screen playing at night so theaters are generally expecting this to hold ok. Pre-sales tell another story though as this has gone cold in several strongholds from last weekend and is being beaten by Horrible Bosses. It is once again being shown in IMAX but sales have been painful with only a few tickets sold. Weekdays have been terrible as Horrible Bosses has passed it after holding a 5,400 admissions advantage against Bosses on opening day. Even more troubling is the cold shoulder it has faced the whole week. Monday's admissions were down 51% from its opening day admissions which were by far and large the biggest drop of any film in the top 5. By comparison, 3 other films managed declines in the 20-25% range while Horrible Bosses saw its Monday admissions slide just 1% from its opening day's.  -63% in its 2nd weekend translates to just $150,000 and a total of only $660,000 so far since its August 25 debut. Its chances of 1m have diminished and $850,000 from here on out looks dicey.

Horrible Bosses will face direct competition from Bad Teacher but will hold generally well with admissions continuing to be quite strong. A couple of theaters have decided to cut this completely but most are giving this some showtimes this weekend. While the cuts will prevent it from scoring a good hold, it has managed to snag the biggest theaters at a couple of places and strong pre-sales should see it drop less than 50% even with Bad Teacher out. It has been holding much better than Cowboys & Aliens so far this week with weekdays nearly matching last weekend's opening Thursday/Friday. A 47% drop would stretch its total to about $475,000 after 11 days.

3 Idiots makes it debut in Hong Kong almost 2 years after its premiere worldwide Christmas 2009. This has been getting tremendous Broadway support and is showing in 75% of its theaters but is getting shut out from other chains like UA and Golden Harvest. While reviews have been strong, foreign language movies with the exception of horror films generally make little to nothing grosses here. Pre-selling has been light and with it already having special screenings last weekend, some demand has already burned off. Due to its long runtime, theaters have added a long running surcharge in line with other films which will keep its grosses up. A $70,000 weekend and $85,000 total including previews is a very good beginning for a film of this nature.

Battle Royale 3D pops its head out in an attempt to commemorate its 10 year anniversary with a special 3D re-release. It is only playing in select theaters with pre-selling doing weak business so far. 3D surcharge will add to its gross but its unlikely to extend beyond hardcore fans so grosses will be kept to a minimum. A $35,000 weekend seems likely.

Jane Eyre is playing in limited release and will only be shown in 3 theaters. Pre-sales have been OK to strong with it playing extremely well in 2 locations but just OK in 1. A $17,500 weekend would be very good for this film.

Snow Flower and The Secret Fan will see 2/4 theaters drop it this week and pre-sales for the other 2 have been quite poor so a 60% drop could happen.

Wasao will retain most of its theaters so maybe a 50% drop will occur.

The other 2, The Whistleblower and Summer Love Love, will either get its screens cut completely or will only be shown once per day. Drops in the 80%-90% range are likely for both films.