'The Departed', a New Personal Best for Scorsese at the Box-Office

Martin Scorsese's drama proved that, indeed, the director has not lost his hand at making brilliant movies and, once again, after the spectacular weekend opening, it reinforces the rumor that it might turn out to be the ideal Oscar candidate.

'The Departed', featuring Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg and Jack Nicholson, and telling the story of betrayal and murder between Boston cops and the Irish mafia, left behind Leatherface from the horror 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning' and Jessica Simpson with 'Employee of the Month', as it made its way into the number one position of the box-office over the weekend, grossing $27 million.

Although 'Massacre' did not get by far the positive reviews that 'The Departed' got, it still managed to occupy a second distant place, cashing in $19.1 million. The story about how the tool-loving killer got to become such a blood-thirsty murderer did not even manage to come close to the 2003 remake that, in its opening weekend, scored high at the box-office, with ticket sales amounting to $28 million.

The third place in people's preferences over the past couple of days was held tight by last week's chart-topper, 'Open Season', with $16 million in ticket sales. Jessica Simpson's follow-up in acting, the romantic comedy 'Employee of the Month' was, all in all, a bit disappointing, as it managed to gross only $11.8 million.

Nevertheless, the biggest flops at the box-office were 'Jackass: Number 2', that fell to number six (with $6.4 million) and Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner's drama, 'The Guardian', that took an unexpected tumble to the fifth place, with $9.6 million.

The rest of the box-office top was occupied by movies that debuted many weeks ago and that, for some reason or another, still manage to get people to watch them. The comedy 'School for Scoundrels' ranked in seventh ($3.4 million), The Rock's first serious role in 'Gridiron Gang' moved in on the eighth position ($2.3 million), Jet Li's last movie, 'Fearless' is on ninth ($2.1 million), while 'The Illusionist' is slowly making his way out of the top ten, coming last, with ticket sales of only $1.8 million.