As the U.S. Box Office slumbers on into the autumn, the figures needed to top the charts are getting ever smaller. However, whilst that makes it largely a head-in-hands experience for many of the studios behind these movies, for those who enjoy waiting to see what the top five's looking like each Monday it's making for exciting watching as smaller figures mean smaller margins between films. Case in point was this weekend where the winner wasn't announced until today (September 24th), with the unfancied Jake Gyllenhaal-starring End Of Watch beating out the more fancied horror House At The End Of The Street and Clint Eastwood's film Trouble With The Curve.

End Of Watch was a victory for independent film studios too, with Open Road Films beating out Relatively Media and Warner Bros to top spot; they'll not care one jot that they took a meager $13.2 million. The other two films will be a little more concerned that they took only $12.2 million and $12.1 million respectively however.

Reflecting on his film's seemingly surprise victory, Open Road Films' Tom Ortenberg commented "We always knew we were going to outperform expectations, and I believe the film will have long legs."Looper, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis will be hoping to wake up the Box Office from the doldrums this coming weekend.