• Zac Efron's Shower Pics Being Auctioned Off [Celebrity Mania]

Pour all contents into paper shredder. Enjoy with a garnish of box office numbers, after the jump!

1. High School Musical 3 - $42 million
The biggest opening ever for a movie musical has Disney walking on air (and Vincente Minnelli spinning in his grave), as HSM's familiar cast of nonthreatening triple-threats successfully made the leap to the big screen. In the series's most mature storyline to date, the entire Wildcats team reveals that it's gay. East High's student body quickly rises to the occasion, however, mounting a bake sale to send their beloved basketball-dance team to the Teen Gay Olympics in Vienna, all of which culminates in the showstopper, "We're All in This Together (Lemon Bars For Change)."

2. Saw V - $30.5 million
Saw lovers piled into theaters once again for the fifth installment of Lionsgate's Halloween tradition, though budget restrictions wouldn't allow for some of the series's more elaborate killing sequences. Instead, shots of Jigsaw riding his tricycle in front of a green screen were superimposed over stock footage of a pork slaughterhouse in Virginia, with V.O. of actors shouting, "Those aren't pigs! Those are human beings!" added later in post to enhance the chilling effect. Fans agreed it was the best installment yet.

3. Max Payne - $7.6 million
Having virtually nothing left to say about Max Payne, we'll just point out that it took in an average of $2,248 per screen this weekend. By comparison, Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom—yet another cult cable show to make the leap to the big screen this weekend—took $32,200 per screen. The lesson? Gamers might be an obvious built-in audience, but never underestimate fans of a black, gay Sex and the City. (Even if the movie's title disturbingly recalls Gay Vito's savage demise).

4. Beverly Hills Chihuahua $6.916 million
You know that scene where there's literally thousands of chihuahua extras dancing and singing in Oaxaca? Wagandstuff mounted all of them.

5. Pride & Glory - $6.325 million
One thing is for certain in this gritty cop drama: Colin Farrell WILLNOTAPOLOGIZEFUHDOINWHATHEDO! Particularly if what he do is wander in and out of an unconvincing New York accent.

• October 24–26, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

WHAT'S NEW: Excepting battles for second place, we haven't had a good duel at the box office for a while now. We don't really have one this week either, but we're keeping an eye on High School Musical 3: Senior Year and Saw V for symbolic value alone: Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and the rest of their East High cohorts may be the first force to vanquish the splatter series on opening day since it launched in 2004. We talked a bit yesterday about HSM3's unprecedented market, and we stand by our $38 million call. Saw V will catch the older kids forced to drive their blubbering siblings to the mall; that and the fanboy cult should treat the film to a $29.7 million opening.

As if HSM3 and Beverly Hills Chihuahua weren't enough of a full-time cultural assault, Disney has Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D as well to court the Halloween crowd; that should pick up at least $5.3 million on 284 screens. Angelina Jolie and Clint Eastwood's missing-child melodrama Changeling also opens small today before platforming wide Oct. 31; we'll get into it a little more at that time. Also opening: The Anne Hathaway/Patrick Wilson ESP thriller Passengers (we hadn't heard of it either); the middling Disney/Bollywood animated effort Roadside Romeo; Kristin Scott-Thomas's Oscar bait I've Loved You So Long; and probably the best Swedish vampire coming-of-age film ever made, Let the Right One In.

THE BIG LOSER: The week's other wide release, the shouty cop-family drama Pride and Glory, finally gets its furlough from the New Line tombs after a nearly two-year delay. But buzz is low, reviews are upside-down, and Ed Norton and Colin Farrell can't open a window these days let alone a big Warner Bros. offering. It'll be left with about $7 million worth of Max Payne's week-two scraps before being reassigned to a nice, quiet desk back at the precinct.

THE UNDERDOG: As predicted here last month, the confounding appeal of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut Synecdoche, New York will likely never play at the box office. But in Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance as a theater director attempting to stage his life's work despite a wayward wife (Catherine Keener), a quickly jaded paramour (Michellle Williams), a fragmented lover/aide (Samantha Morton, giving way to doppelganger Emily Watson), black holes in the time/space continuum and a variety of debilitating physical ailments, you will find the anchor in both the saddest, sweetest perplexity of Kaufman's career and quite possibly the best American film of the year. Just as no volume of words can or even should describe what's happening here (though we will try in our love letter to come later today), we can't recommend enough that you find two hours in your weekend — and then however many years of contemplation afterward — to accommodate this masterpiece.

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's few DVD releases of note include The Incredible Hulk (both Marvel's folly from last summer and the collected TV series), the scary Liv Tyler sleeper The Strangers, Craig Lucas's Sundance blip Birds of America and for the exhaustive Hoff completist in all of us, Knight Rider: The Complete Series.

Is a tween riot enough to keep you from the multiplex this weekend? Will you defy Saw V's marketing campaign and actually believe how it ends? Have you yet put off laundry for another day to take in Synecdoche, New York? Better yet, call in sick and let's make it a holiday. Tell your boss we said it's all right.

Nikki Finke has her own interesting read this morning, pointing to the even rarer phenomenon of a cable movie franchise so lucratively crossing over to the multiplex. Series are one thing, and rarely a lock themselves (Disney only had a Hannah Montana blockbuster at the ready because it brought cameras on tour with Miley Cyrus), but we'll buy lunch at the Grill for the first reader who can name a made-for-TV feature that spawned a theatrical No. 1. (Opposite another cash cow like Saw 5, no less.) And then s/he can buy us a life.

We'll have more fearless predictions tomorrow in our Defamer Attractions column, but in the meantime, expect Disney to have greenlighted Camp Rock 3D: Escape of the Jonases for IMAX by the the time you finish reading this sentence.

• FINAL WEEKEND TRACKING: 'HSM3' to Belt Out $35M-$38M [Fantasy Moguls]

• 'HS Musical 3' Owns Advance Box Office [DHD]

Boomp3.com

At the Paris premiere of the latest chapter in the exhilarating High School Musical series, hunky film star Zac Efron admitted to long time gal pal Vanessa Hudgens that she’s nearly as pretty as he is. The pint sized hunk admitted that being in the City of Lights could have had an influence on his decision to call his musical partner pretty. Efron said, “She usually looks good, but something there’s just something about tonight.”

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.