“The Help” topped the box office charts for its third straight week, grossing an estimated $19 million over the sluggish Labour Day holiday weekend. Which is pretty impressive, actually, since it held the top spot last week with only $14.3 million; it seems people can’t get enough of Tate Taylor’s simplified take on the 1960s civil-rights struggle.

John Madden’s remake of “The Debt” opened in second place with $12.6 million, incidentally making this the weekend of Jessica Chastain. Couldn’t happen to a nicer person, really.

End-of-summer programmers “Shark Night 3D” and “Apollo 18” fared less well, finishing third and fourth with $10.7 million and $10.3 million, respectively. I suspect the target audience for both films was busy getting ripped in anticipation of going back to school. That’ll happen, this time of year.