Four Brothers, the new movie from Boyz N the Hood director John Singleton, made it to number one at the US box office at the weekend despite a relatively meagre $20.7m (£11.4m) haul.

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese and Andre 3000, it centres on four adopted siblings struggling to track down their mother's killer on the mean streets of Detroit and is based roughly on the 1965 John Wayne western The Sons of Katie Elder.

As the Stateside slump moved into its third week, the Kate Hudson supernatural thriller The Skeleton Key took second place with $15.8m (£8.7m). Last week's top film, The Dukes of Hazzard, managed third despite a 58% drop to $13m (£7.2m).

The total box office take for the top 12 films was down 16% on the same weekend last year, when the top slot was occupied by the far-from-blockbusting Alien vs Predator, with $38m (£21m).

Comedy Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, a sequel to the 1999 original Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo starring Rob Schneider, fared poorly in fifth with $9.4m (£5.2m) in its opening week.

Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office-tracker Exhibitor Relations, said August was usually a "slowdown month". But he admitted: "It was a fairly unremarkable weekend at the box office."

In a small fillip for the film industry, the Morgan Freeman-narrated wildlife documentary March of the Penguins continues to do well. It dropped just one spot and has now made $37.6m (£20.9m) from a shoestring budget.