Universal dug up a helluva lot of gold this weekend, as the studio’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army invaded the top grossing spot, with $35.9 million. That’s director Guillermo del Toro’s best opening ever. His original installment of the Dark Horse comic series opened to $23.2 million. Talks for a third Hellboy flick are already underway.

No word yet on a sequel to Hancock, however, as it dropped only 47% over it’s second weekend, grossing $33 million for a second place finish. It’s made $165 million in its first ten days in theaters, so it appears that star Will Smith could indeed star in part two, if he’s interested.

Journey to the Center of the Earth came in third, earning an estimated $20.6 million. Fifty-seven percent of its total came from its nearly 900 3D screens, which often cost three to four dollars more than standard movie tickets, even though that represented only about a third of the total screens showing the Brendan Fraser flick. This marks the first time an entire live action film was shot in this particular 3D format. Warner Bros. previously did well with the animated Beowolf shot entirely in 3D.

While Journey to the Center of the Earth did better than expected, Fox’s Meet Dave did considerably worse. It made a meager $5.3 million in its freshman weekend, to land in seventh place. That makes it the third worst opening ever for star Eddie Murphy; only The Adventures of Pluto Nash and The Holy Man made less their first weekends out.

In fourth place was Disney-Pixar’s WALL-E, which, in its third week, did nearly as well as Journey to the Center of the Earth. WALL-E earned an estimated $18.5 million more over the weekend, bringing its total to $162.8 million. This summer's other major animated picture, Paramount's Kung Fu Panda, finished in eighth place, but still added $.3 million in its sixth week to top the $200 million mark overall.  Universal's Wanted rounded out the top five, in its third week of release, with $11,586,000.

It comes as no surprise that box office totals are down substantially (17%) from the same weekend last year, when Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix debuted. This year’s totals are about 3% behind last year’s totals at this point. So far this year, domestic theatergoers have paid just a little less than $5 billion, so studios are not complaining—yet.