The film, directed by William Brent Bell, stands atop the weekend movie-pile with an estimated haul of $34.5 million.  That's a surprise to almost everybody, as Paramount Pictures was predicting that The Devil Inside would earn something like $15 million at most over the weekend, a figure that the movie upended on Friday alone, when it earned $16.85 million.

How does a movie that is so poorly received make that kind of money?  Mostly marketing, one imagines.  Following the ridiculous success of Paranormal Activity, Paramount started Insurge, a division for inexpensively-produced features marketed almost exclusively at young people.  The Devil Inside, acquired for $1 million, is the second Insurge release, following last year's Justin Beiber: Never Say Never, and the audience was appropriately young, with 85% of the crowd being under 35 years old.

Given the vitriol with which audiences have reacted to the movie, particularly its ending, it probably won't be able to sustain this kind of performance into next weekend.  Still, that probably won't stop Paramount from promptly getting to work on The Devil Inside 2: The Devil Even Deeper Inside.

On the other end of the quality spectrum is the number two movie, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.  The fourth entry in the franchise and the live-action debut of director Brad Bird has been consistently praised by both critics and audiences, and after holding the number one spot for several weeks, the Tom Cruise-led action adventure fell to second with a $20.5 million estimate.  It dipped just 30% from last weekend, and its domestic total now stands at $170.2 million. 

Despite debuts that many considered disappointing, both Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are holding well in the longer run.  The Holmesian sequel lost 33% of its audience from last week, earning an estimated $14.1 million for a total of $157.4 million, making it unlikely that the film, in third place, will match its predecessor's haul of $209 million.  In fourth place, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo showed the smallest decline of any movie in the top ten, losing just 23% of of attendees from last weekend.  The new $11.4 million in its coffers brings the David Fincher-directed adaptation's total to $76.8 million.

Elsewhere, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy expanded from just 57 locations to 809.  Though its playing on fewer than 1,000 screens, the thoroughly British John Le Carre adaptation cracked the top ten with an estimated showing of $5.8 million.  After five weeks in limited release, the film has now earned $10.4 million

Here's the full top ten for the weekend of January 6th through 8th:

1. The Devil Inside                                                         $34.5 million         New Release

2. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol                      $20.5 million         $170.2 million

3. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows                    $14.1 million         $157.4 million

4. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo                              $11.4 million         $76.8 million

5. Alvin and the Chipmunks: ChipWrecked                $9.5 million           $111.6 million

6. War Horse                                                                 $8.6 million           $56.8 million

7. We Bought a Zoo                                                      $8.5 million           $56.4 million

8. The Adventures of Tintin                                         $6.6 million           $61.9 million

9. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy                                       $5.8 million            $10.4 million

10. New Year's Eve                                                       $3.3 million            $52.0 million

The weekend to come sees wide releases for Contraband and Joyful Noise, as well as the 3D rerelease of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, not to be underestimated after last year's hugely popular rerelease of The Lion King in three dimensions.