Emma Stone appears in a scene from the 2011 film The Help. - Provided courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures

'The Help' takes No. 1 spot at Friday box office for third week

09/03/2011 by Olivia Allin

Emma Stone's "The Help" is on track to stay in the No. 1 position in the weekend box office for the third week in a row.

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The film took in another $3.6 million on Friday and kept its spot at the box office, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The movie, which stars Stone, Viola Davis and Bryce Dallas Howard, has taken in an estimated $108 million domestically since opening last month.

The Nazi-hunting thriller "The Debt," starring Helen Mirren landed in the No. 3 spot, grossing $2.6 million on Friday, and over-performing in the box office so far.

In Mirren's new film, "The Debt," the 66-year-old plays Rachel Singer, who once worked as a Mossad agent and is haunted by one of her past missions. She and her colleagues were in the 1960s tasked with catching a Nazi war criminal - a doctor who experimented on German concentration camp prisoners during the Holocaust.

Jessica Chastain, who also stars in "The Help," plays a younger version of Mirren's character in scenes set in the 1960s. Marton Csokas and Sam Worthington play her fellow agents. Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds play the characters in 1997 and star alongside Mirren.

The Focus Features and Miramax film is playing in fewer theaters than its competition and is expected to earn $12 million over the four-day holiday weekend.

The new 3D horror flick "Shark Night 3D" tied with the Weinstein Company's "Apollo 18" for second place in the box office, earning $2.8 million each.

"Shark Night 3D" follows seven vacationers whose weekend at a lake house in the Louisiana Gulf turns into a nightmare when they are subjected to a series of shark attacks.

"Apollo 18" was shot in mockumentary style, supposedly of lost footage of NASA's last trip to the moon in the abandoned Apollo 18 mission where two astronauts were sent on a secret expedition but never returned.

Check out trailers for "The Debt," "Shark Night 3D" and "Apollo 18" below.