By James Caldwell, PWTorch.com assistant editor

WWE star John Cena was defeated by "The Rock" Dwayne Johnson at the weekend box office despite Cena having the advantage of an opening weekend and Johnson's movie being in its third weekend.

WWE Studios's "12 Rounds," starring John Cena, drew an estimated $5.3 million in ticket revenue on opening weekend, which was nearly $2.0 million less than the opening weekend for Cena's first movie, "The Marine," in October 2006.

By comparison, "Race to Witch Mountain," starring The Rock, drew an estimated $5.6 million to bring its three-weekend total to $53.3 million.

On the weekend movie charts, Rock's movie finished sixth overall and Cena's movie finish seventh. On Friday, the two movies were switched in positions, but "Race" had a very strong Saturday at the movies compared to Cena's movie.

Estimates from boxofficemojo.com for "12 Rounds" indicate $1.8 million on Friday, $2.1 million on Saturday, and $1.4 million on Sunday.

Of the four theatrical movies released by WWE, "The Marine" delivered WWE's highest-grossing opening weekend with $7.2 million in ticket revenue. "12 Rounds" is second-place, ahead of Kane's "See No Evil" that grossed $4.6 million on opening weekend.

Caldwell's Analysis: Disappointing first weekend for "12 Rounds." Perhaps good word-of-mouth will lead to a stronger second weekend, but it didn't help that the movie went up against an animated family film that drew serious cash this weekend. Cena's audience was most-likely at "Monsters vs. Aliens" or Rock's movie considering he hosted Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards yesterday. Cena doesn't have enough credibility with non-wrestling fans to draw a huge "action movie" audience, so if the target audience was staying home or going to one of the other two "family" movies, WWE really didn't stand a chance.

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