Kevin Spacey is a well-respected theatrical artistic director. This is mostly because all the films he's made lately have been cack.

It's true – look at K-Pax, Pay It Forward, The Shipping News, Fred Claus. Kevin Spacey can't even make a Superman movie these days without everyone thinking it's a bag of stupid donkey pubes.

But, hey, look at this – Kevin Spacey is in 21, and 21 is the number one movie at the US weekend box office this week. And 21's success is definitely because Kevin Spacey is in it, not because loads of attractive young folk hint at scenes of graphic rumpy-pumpy in the trailer. No sirree.

21 is the number one movie at the US weekend box office, and it's surprising not just because it's a vaguely successful Kevin Spacey movie. We're surprised that 21 is the top movie at the weekend box office because it's a movie about card games – an internal pursuit that's notoriously difficult to get right cinematically. And we're pretty sure that it's the cards that made people go and see 21. Because it definitely couldn't be the constant insinuation that you'll get to see Kate Bosworth's sweater-potatoes. Here's the US weekend box office top five…

1 - 21 (Honestly, we're stumped as to why 21 has been such a box office draw. We've seen Casino Royale, after all, so we know that movie card games only work when there's a bearded French policeman whispering a patronising step-by-step commentary about what's going on during the games. And we refuse to watch 21 until one of those has been digitally inserted) $23,700,000

2 - Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (Riding high in the weekend box office for the third week running, Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! is now officially the second most successful movie about an elephant that can hear dust after that dream we had once when we were off our shit on over the counter decongestant medication) $17,425,000

3 - Superhero Movie (Forget that it's a critically-massacred, badly thought-out, oddly-timed 15th-generation retread of Scary Movie, the poor performance of Superhero Movie means that its producers have to face the ultimate humiliation – it hasn't even done as well as Meet The Spartans. People have thrown themselves off bridges for less) $9,510,000

4 - Tyler Perry's Meet The Browns (This is a shock – a Tyler Perry movie that hasn't crashed in at the top of the weekend box office. Perhaps the wheels have fallen off the 'black actor dressed as an elderly woman' trend. If that's true then it spells certain financial ruin for Tyler Perry. On the other hand, though, it means that Big Momma's House 3 is less likely to happen, so we're probably OK with it on balance) $7,760,000

5 - Drillbit Taylor (So the first post-suicide attempt Owen Wilson movie has been a bit of a flop. Still, now he's back on his feet we're sure his next film will propel him to the top of the Hollywood pile agai… what? It's going to be a romantic comedy? About a dog? Co-starring Jennifer Aniston? Dear lord, hasn't the man suffered enough already?) $5,800,000

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Weekend Box Office – Box Office Mojo