Underworld Overachieves, Red Tails Flies High and Haywire Gets KO'd) As Kate Beckinsale vamps her way to the top of the weekend charts, Haywire's Mixed Martial Arts pinup Gina gets pinned by the Tuskegee Airmen Creatures of the night arose with a vengeance, as Underworld Awakening, fourth in the vampires-vs.-werewolves action-horror franchise, won the weekend box-office battle at North American theaters with $25.4 million, according to preliminary studio estimates. Red Tails, George Lucas's tribute to the black Tuskegee Airmen in World War II, flew high with $19.1 million to finish second. Steven Soderbergh's Haywire, starring Mixed Martial Arts pinup Gina Carano, took a beating and limped into fifth place with $9 million, behind the $10.5 million earned by the post-9/11 family drama Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. All totaled, the box office was muscular: a 32% increase over the same weekend last year. The Underworld series enjoyed its next-best opening, after the $26.9 million earned by the second installment, Underworld: Evolution, in 2006. A new episode emerges from its spectral lair every three years. Awakening marked the return of première vampeuse Kate Beckinsale, absent in the 2009 prequel Rise of the Lycans. To celebrate her comeback, the movie went to 3-D and IMAX, whose premium prices accounted for 59% of the take. The film also earned a toothsome $13.4 million in 36 foreign markets, for a $38.78 million first-weekend global gross. Each of the previous Underworld entries took in about $100 million worldwide. MORE: See Richard Corliss's review of Underworld Awakening The Tuskegee pilots, who braved racial prejudice to help the U.S. win the war against Hitler, had been the subjects of an acclaimed HBO film, The Tuskegee Airmen, in 1995 and at least five documentaries (including a 1945 Army short, Wings for This Man, narrated by Ronald Reagan). Lucas has said he tried for 23 years to interest studios in the story, finally financing and marketing the movie himself, with 20th Century-Fox distributing. Industry handicappers had predicted a weekend gross of $9 million to $11 million, but Lucas, luring hordes of schoolteachers and their pupils into Fri. matinee showings, registered a strong $6 million that opening day. The number, expected to plummet Sat., instead soared 44% to $8.65 million. Panned by most critics, the bio-pic, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Terrence Howard, proved two things: that enthusiastic word-of-mouth can propel an iffy project toward hit status, and that studios should probably still listen to George Lucas. MORE: See Mary Pols" review of Red Tails Extremely Loud, starring Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock and Thomas Horn as a boy whose father died in the World Trade Center attacks, was originally touted as a top Oscar contender. Critics didn't warm up to it, and the film earned less than $1 million in four weeks of very limited release. Its expansion this week to 2,630 theaters, though, augurs well for an honorable box-office run. Attracting an older crowd (82% of the weekend audience was over 25), EL&IC pulled a lofty A-minus grade from moviegoers polled by the market research firm CinemaScore. That rating was in line with the good vibes of consumers who saw Underworld Awakening (an A-minus CinemaScore) and Red Tails (a solid A). MORE: See Mary Pols" review of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close The audience's good will evaporated with Haywire, which garnered an abysmal D-plus rating. The spectacle of Carano, the MMA star, beating up on the likes of Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor and Michael Fassbender attracted a young crowd (64% of the audience was under 35) but not a large one, and most of those who saw it wished they hadn't. The movie's first-weekend tally was closer to those of Soderbergh's indie-style efforts (Solaris, The Informant!) than to his mainstream crowd-pleasers (the Ocean's franchise and last year's Contagion). Call Haywire a technical knock-out - not by the movie but of it. MORE: See Richard Corliss's review of Haywire One picture hopes to display its killer punch on Oscar Night, Feb. 26: The Artist. After eight weeks in limited release, this virtually wordless evocation of Hollywood's silent-film era finally got to A Theater Near You - and You didn't care. Expanding from 216 screens to 662, the movie grossed a quiet $2.4 million, for a $3,579 per-screen average. Compare this with The Artist's presumed main competition for Best Picture, The Descendants, which in Dec. broke into 574 theaters and earned $4.8 million, or $8,344 per screen. MORE: See Mary Corliss" review of The Artist Yes, The Descendants stars George Clooney, and The Artist stars two French folks (Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo) who are virtually unknown in the States. And yes again, The Artist remains the Academy Award front-runner: last night it picked up the top prize from the Producer Guild of America, a leading indicator for the Best Picture Oscar. But Academy voters may want to hand their super statuette to a movie America loves as much as they do. It would help The Artist's Oscar chances is some real people paid to see it. Here are the Sunday estimates of this weekend's top-grossing pictures in North American theaters, as reported by Box Office Mojo: Underworld Awakening, $25.4 million, first weekend Red Tails, $19.1 million, first weekend Contraband, $12.1 million; $46.1 million, second week Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, $10.5 million; $11.2 million, fifth week Haywire, $9 million, first weekend Beauty and the Beast, $8.6 million; $33.4 million, second week of rerelease Joyful Noise, $6.1 million; $21.9 million, second week Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, $5.5 million; $197.3 million, sixth week Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, $4.8 million; $178.6 million, sixth week The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, $3.75 million; $94.8 million, fifth week