Not a great weekend for one of America's top box office superstars. Tom Cruise did hit the number one weekend spot, but seeing that the only other movie opening was Little Black Book, his Collateral take was a fairly unimpressive $24.4 million.

Cruise's box office clout hasn't exactly taken a nose dive -- his more upscale pictures opened rather well: 2003s 'The Last Samurai' took in $24.3, and 2001's 'Vanilla Sky' hit with a $25 million open. But those those kinds of numbers don't cut it when it comes to summer blockbusting season. Collateral's $24 million doesn't even come close to Cruise's past summer opening weekend toppers: Mission Impossible opened at $45.4 million; M:I 2 at $57.8 million; and Minority Report at $35.6 million.

Collateral was only beat out by Michael Moore's hotly controversial Fahrenheit 9/11 as the summer's lowest no. 1 open. The documentary took in an impressive $23.9 million, and has gone on to well exceed the $100 million mark.

Taking the no. 2 spot at the weekend box office is M. Night Shymalan's The Village, with an embarrassing 67% drop in box office sales, due to some bad word of mouth. Matt Damon's Bourne Supremacy picked up a little speed, even though it dropped to no. 3, taking in $14.1 million for a total of $124.3 million. And The Manchurian Candidate ($10.8 million) holds onto the number 4 spot, leaving Brittany Murphy at no. 5 with her Little Black Book taking in just $7 million.

M. Night and Mr. Bourne are some pretty worthy box office opponents for Cruise, but it makes you wonder what would have happened had Cruise opened opposite someone more bulked up than Brittany Murphy.

According to tracking firm Exhibitor Relations, overall box office business for this weekend was down sharply. The top 12 films earned about $97.7 million, the smallest total since the first weekend of May, when the sum was $94 million.