The Prestige debuted at No. 1 this weekend with $14.8 million, outperforming Clint Eastwood's World War II saga, which opened at No. 3 with $10.2 million. Sliding into second place was Martin Scorsese's The Departed, which took in $13.7 million and raised its three-week total to $77.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, Sony's horror sequel The Grudge 2, tumbled to fifth-place with $7.7 million, lifting its 10-day total to $31.4 million. Box-office analysts had viewed the weekend as a three-way race among well-reviewed films: Disney's The Prestige, starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as rival magicians in a blood feud; Paramount's Flags of Our Fathers, dramatizing the Iwo Jima invasion; and the Warner Bros. mob tale The Departed.

The Prestige debuted in 2,281 theaters, 400 more than Flags. The Departed is playing wider, in 3,005 cinemas. With 70 percent of its viewers under 35, The Prestige drew a younger crowd that tends to turn out in bigger numbers over opening weekend. Eighty percent of the audience for Flags was older than 30. Sony's Marie Antoinette, with Kirsten Dunst in director Sofia Coppola's chronicle of the 18th century queen beheaded during the French Revolution, premiered at No. 8 with $5.3 million. Running With Scissors, featuring Joseph Cross, Annette Bening and Alec Baldwin in an adaptation of Augusten Burroughs' best-seller, opened strongly with $225,000 in eight theaters.