YOUR WEAKEND BOX OFFICE: Filmgoing picked up slightly this weekend after a rough month, with the box office take of $86 million down just 15% from last year, when Disney launched The Lion King in 3D to $30 million. This year, Screen Gems/Sony’s fifth installment of the Resident Evil series grossed a total of $21 million, topping Pixar/Disney’s 3D re-boot of Finding Nemo, which earned $17.5m. Lionsgate’s The Possession was next in its second week, adding $5.7 million for a total of $41m, while The Weinstein Company’s bootlegging drama Lawless was #4, with a $4.2m weekend and a $30.3m take in three weeks. Millennium/Lionsgate’s geriatric action flick, The Expendables 2, rounded out the Top 5 with $3.1m in its fifth week, for a total of $80.4m. Biggest news of the weekend, though, was the five-theater, L.A./N.Y. premiere of Paul Thomas Anderson’s critically acclaimed The Master, the first surefire Oscar contender of the year, taking in $730k for a record per-screen average of $145k, breaking the mark of $130k set by Focus Features’ Wes Anderson movie Moonrise Kingdom earlier this year. Finally Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate’s well-reviewed financial thriller Arbitrage, starring Richard Gere, had the biggest opening ever for a film debuting in both theatres and On Demand, bringing in $2 million on only 197 screens for a per-screen average of $10.5k. The movie is also #2 on iTunes and #1 in both the Drama and Thriller categories. (9/17a)