By Scott Mendelson HollywoodNews.com: A handful of new releases were not enough to dethrone the buzzy and generally terrific ‘founding of Facebook’ drama “The Social Network” from the top spot this weekend. Dropping a measly 30%, the David Fincher picture grossed $15.5 million in its second weekend. With a ten-day total of $46 million, the Aaron Sorkin-penned picture is still firmly locked in its status as Oscar front-runner. The much-discussed film (‘is it accurate?’ ‘is it sexist?’ ‘is it a defining piece of generational cinema?’) is quickly become a must-see motion picture, which bodes well in the coming weeks as the rest of the month is filled with horror titles. Barring unknown variables, “The Social Network” should stand as the water-cooler picture and the second-choice for general moviegoers at least until the holiday season. Coming in second place was “Life As We Know It.” The Katherine Heigl/Josh Duhamel comedy opened with $14.6 million. I’m of two minds about this opening weekend. On one hand, the opening was lower than the much-discussed $16 million opening for “Killers,” to say nothing of the $23 million-$30 million openings of “Knocked Up,” “27 Dresses,” and “The Ugly Truth.” On the other hand, this film film only cost $38 million (“Killers” cost an absurd $70 million) and the movie had Heigl and Heigl alone to sell it. Josh Duhamel is not anything resembling a movie star, and the film’s plot was guaranteed to turn off a good chunk of the theoretical audience. Think about it: if you were a parent, how eager would you be to spend money on a babysitter and use a precious night out to see a movie in which two loving parents are killed off and their young child is brought up by their two immature friends who luckily find love together? Point being, true stardom is opening a movie with nothing but your face on the poster. Katherine Heigl opened “Life as We Know It” to $14.6 million despite the film’s inherently unpleasant (and implausible) underlying premise. Third place went to “Secretariat,” the 1970s period piece starring Diane Lane as an owner of a prize racehorse during the 1970s. This would-be Oscar bait opened with $12.6 million. The $35 million picture opened right in the Diane Lane comfort zone, a bit more than “Untraceable” ($11 million), just under “Must Love Dogs” ($12.8 million), and a bit below her Richard Gere-co starring melodramas “Nights [...]