Warner Bros’ horror release The Final Destination just about held on to pole position as summer drew to a close over the Labor Day public holiday.

Overall this was a record breaking season that generated $4.31bn in box office to finish roughly 4% of summer 2008 with about the same level of admissions. Paramount’s Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen in 19th place became the first film of the year to cross $400m on Saturday [September 5] and has reached $400.4m after 11 weeks in release.

The Final Destination added $15.4m following a 43.6% fall for a $50.6m running total and held on to the number one spot, only just ahead of The Weinstein Company’s Inglourious Basterds insecond place on $15m for $95.2m.

Quentin Tarantino’s wartime action tale needs a further $12.7m to overtake Pulp Fiction’s final $107.9m tally and become Quentin Tarantino’s biggest domestic hit. Overseas the film has amassed more than $83m through Universal/UPI and globally it stands at $176m.

Fox’s new comedy All About Steve debuted in third place on $13.9m and stars Sandra Bullock, Brad Cooper and Thomas Haden Church. It received a critical mauling and is not expected to stay around for long, a prognosis that will be all the more galling to Bullock and Cooper as they starred in two of this summer’s biggest hits, The Proposal and The Hangover, respectively.

Lionsgate opened the video game thriller Gamer starring Gerard Butler in fourth place on $11.2m, while District 9 in firth place crossed $100m in its fourth weekend as $9m raised the tally to an excellent $103.3m.

Miramax’s comedy Extract with Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck and Mila Kunis launched in tenth place on $5.3m.

Next weekend’s wide releases are: Warner Bros’ thriller Whiteout starring Kate Beckinsale and Gabriel Macht; Summit Entertainment’s horror remake Sorority Row; Lionsgate’s Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself with Taraji P Henson; and Focus Features animated adventure 9 featuring the voice talent of Jennifer Connelly, Elijah Wood and Christopher Plummer.

Estimated Top 10 North America September 4-7, 2009

Film (Dist)/Est wkd gross/Est total to date

1 (1) The Final Destination (Warner Bros) WBPI/NLI $15.4m $50.6m

2 (2) Inglourious Basterds (TWC) UPI $15m $95.2m

3 (-) All About Steve (Fox) Fox Int’l $13.9m

4 (-) Gamer (Lionsgate) Lakeshore Int’l $11.2m

5 (4) District 9 (TriStar) QED Int’l/SPRI $9m $103.3m

6 (3) Halloween II (TWC) TWC Int’l $7.1m $27.1m

7 (6) Julie & Julia (Sony) SPRI $7m $80.6m

8 (5) G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra (Paramount) PPI $6.7m $141m

9 (7) The Time Traveler’s Wife (Warner Bros) WBPI/NLI $5.5m $55.8m

10 (-) Extract (Miramax) ContentFilm Int’l $5.3m

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