QUEEN OF THE DAMNED, the latest screen adaptation from Anne Rice’s VAMPIRE CHRONICLES, took a bite out of this weekend’s box office debuting at number one. The thriller, with visual effects by Grey Matters FX and Manex, earned $15.1M. QUEEN’s sexy vampires handily beat last week’s number one film, the Denzel Washington-starrer JOHN Q, with visual effects by The Effects Group. The hostage drama came in second with $12.5M for a cume of $39.8M. In third was supernatural thriller DRAGONFLY, with visual effects by Double Negative, which took in a respectable $10.4M to knock Disney’s RETURN TO NEVER LAND to fourth. The animated sequel earned $9M in its second weekend for a total of $27.2M to date. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s terrorist drama COLLATERAL DAMAGE, with visual effects by Digital Filmworks, took the biggest fall this week, dropping five places to tenth. Earning just $3.7M for the weekend, the film has grossed $34.5M in three weeks. After ten weeks in release, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, with primary visual effects by WETA, has settled in twelfth place, earning $3.5M for a total of $283.3M to date. Box office information obtained from yahoo.com.