"Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" was the top dog at the weekend box office in North America, according to preliminary figures released Sunday.

The DreamWorks animated comedy about an inventor and his dog taking on a monster rabbit is expected to gross about 16.1 million dollars in its North American debut, the Los Angeles-based box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations reported.

"Flightplan," which features two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster, dropped to second place after holding the top spot for two weeks, with an expected take of 10.7 million dollars.

The debut of "In her Shoes" (10 million dollars) was third, followed by the openings of "Two for the Money" (8.4 million dollars) and "The Gospel" (8 million dollars).

In terms of revenue-per-screen, "Good Night, and Good Luck" -- which opened in limited release -- was the top earner.

The George Clooney-directed film, which chronicles the stand CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow took in 1954 against the "Red Scare" tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy, averaged 38,182 dollars per screen, with an estimated overall weekend take of 420,000 dollars.

By comparison, the average per-screen revenue of "Wallace and Gromit" was 4,416 dollars.

Overall weekend box office revenues -- which have been down most of the year -- continued the slump this weekend, as the dozen top-grossing movies earned about 87.7 million dollars, down nearly 10 percent from the same period a year ago.