“Max Payne,” the video game turned movie that stars Mark Wahlberg, scored big points at the North American Box Office despite the fact that two other successful movies did well this weekend as well: “The Secret Life of Bees” and “W.”

Nevertheless, “Max Payne,” the dark film which centers on a cop in search of those who killed his family, was No. 1 as it grossed $18 million from Friday through Sunday. The highly-anticipated “W.” landed a 4th place debut with earnings of about $10.6 million. Not bad for a film about a man whom many Americans blame for the current financial crisis.

"You can't really expect that a politically charged movie like that would take the weekend over a big video game adaptation with a movie star in the lead role," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. Oliver Stone’s film on George W. Bush starred Josh Brolin as Bush and was released by Lionsgate, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.

Walt Disney Co's comedy "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" was this weekend’s No. 2 with $11.2 million ($69.1 million total), while "The Secret Life of Bees" was third with earnings of approximately $11.1 million. The Southern drama had this weekend’s best average among wide releases ($6,945).

"Max Payne" and "The Secret Life of Bees" were released by News Corp.’s units 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight respectively.

This weekend’s No. 5 was DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures’ action thriller "Eagle Eye" with earnings of $7.3 million, bringing its total so far to $81.3 million.