You could make an argument either way (and believe us — people are), but Lionsgate never left much doubt that it would obtain the top-doc spot sooner or later. Yet while it's never been on more than half as many screens as Expelled — 568 to 1,062 — Religulous had the compounded advantages of a Toronto Film Fest launch, Maher tearing up Sherri Shepherd and anyone who would sit still for him on national TV, aggressive, conspicuous marketing, and a furtive NYC/LA residency to help qualify for its forthcoming Oscar nod. In the end, all that topping Expelled means this weekend is that Lionsgate's $3 million diatribe might break even earlier than expected.

Expelled's budget was about the same, but stunned observers by finishing in the top 10 its opening weekend with little more than a grassroots push by the marketers who brought you The Passion of the Christ and other Christian-themed hits. Among them, Kirk Cameron's Fireproof carried the baton into fall with $17.2 million in less than three weeks. All due respect to Maher and Co., but that might be the long-term business to be in during bleak industry patches like this. Just avoid chihuahuas — you can't lose.

• Nothing ridiculous about 'Religulous' grosses [LAT]

The courts ultimately tossed it, but today we're learning that Stein's persuasive copyright-law revisionism was too little, too late to vanquish a nemesis as crafty as Yoko:

The mere pendency of these cases caused the film's DVD distributor to shy away from releasing the full film — the version that includes the Imagine segment. So the film goes out on DVD on October 21 in censored form, illustrating the damage that even an unproved and unsupported infringement claim can do.

Right. We know better, though: If Stein and Co. aren't pushing Expelled: The Unrated Fair-Use Director's Cut by next Chrstmas with the tagline, "The Version Yoko Ono Couldn't 'Imagine' You Seeing!", then these guys aren't nearly the savvy, ruthless market witches we took took them for.

• 'Expelled' is Absolved [Center for Internet and Society via THR Esq]

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Ono accuses the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed of suggesting to viewers that those who guard John Lennon's legacy somehow authorized or sponsored the film.

The producers of the film ... said they used only "a very small portion of the song." "Based on the fair use doctrine, news commentators and film documentarians regularly use material in the same way we do," Premise Media said in a statement. "Unbiased viewers of the film will see that the 'Imagine' clip was used as part of a social commentary in the exercise of free speech and freedom of inquiry."

Worse yet, the complaint alleges that "Internet 'bloggers' immediately began accusing Mrs. Lennon of 'selling out' by licensing the song to defendants." Having also been on the receiving end of such "bloggers"' wrath in the past, we deeply sympathize with Ono and hope her .029% share of Expelled's staggering $3 million opening gross covers the indignity of anyone thinking she would exploit her husband's legacy. To that end, we hear Stein's defense will consist of him playing the Original Broadway Cast Album of Ono's bomb Lennon in its entirety at full blast.

• Yoko Ono sues in NY [AP]

Previously, only March of the Penguins, the Jackass films and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko appeared on more than 1,000 screens at once. An Inconvenient Truth never played on more than 600 screens. ...

Distributor Rocky Mountain Pictures employed Motive Marketing, the same firm that targeted Christian audiences for The Passion of the Christ and the Narnia films, for outreach to the faith community. This likely blunted the force of the overwhelmingly negative critical reviews of the film, which may be the worst reviewed documentary of all time, a stat that some may write off to liberal bias, save that even the NY Post's Kyle Smith (who famously pans nearly every left-leaning doc) gives the film a mixed review[.]

Really, though, in the end we couldn't care less about critics, ideology and marketing, because it is to our perverse, rollicking pleasure that Ben Fucking Stein outdrew George Clooney over the weekend. This should usher in a new era of stardom for the conservative figure, whose next outing into the cultural wild, Expelled 2: Wetbacks Be Gone, will feature a border-trolling Stein quizzing illegal immigrants on all nature of trivia before sending losers back to the South in his patented new Mexipult™. Then watch Stein and company kill on 2,000 screens; everyone knows this kind of insanity sells itself.

• 'Expelled' Trounces 'Osama' [All These Wonderful Things via IFC]