And, lo, The Book Of Revelations foretold of a catastrophic event. A hairless canine with pointy ears would come unto the earth and bring with it Armageddon... okay, not really, but mankind did take one serious step back away from enlightenment this weekend when US crowds flocked to see a movie about the adventures of a talking lap dog.
Walt Disney scored first place with its new family comedy, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which opened to an estimated $29 million from 3,215 theaters. That marks the eighth-biggest debut for the month of October ever - click hereto see for yourself why that is so very wrong.
In other, less shocking, news, DreamWorks' Eagle Eye, starring Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan dropped to second place with $17.7 million in its second weekend, bringing the D.J. Caruso-directed thriller's box office total to $54.6 million.
Indie flick Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist, with Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, fared well with a third spot entry raking in $12 million.
Richard Gere's latest weepie, Nights In Rodanthe, dropped two spots to number four, while Ed Harris' western Appaloosa moved up to the number five place for its third week in the top ten.
Other newcomers included David Zucker's An American Carol, Bill Maher's Religulous, the Anne Hathaway-starrer Rachel Getting Married, Greg Kinnear's Flash Of Genius, Fernando Meirelles' Blindness and Simon Pegg's latest How To Lose Friends & Alienate People.