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The Leonardo DiCaprio flick Inception opened this weekend and let me just say that it was absolutely mind-blowing. Apparently a lot of other people thought so as well, giving the film an opening weekend of $60.4 million. That’s more that Christopher Nolan‘s, the director, opening weekend for his reboot of Batman Begins!

And now the sad news: Nicolas Cage‘s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice meanwhile, which is estimated to have cost Disney about $150 million, opened with a whimpering $17.4 million from Friday-Sunday, and only $24.5 million overall since opening Wednesday.

Inception is the summer’s biggest debut for a non-franchise flick, à la Iron Man 2,  and a non-reboot, à la The Karate Kid or The A Team. It’s the summer’s biggest debut for a new idea, which seem to be so rare anymore. 

This film now is also the biggest opener, by far, of DiCaprio’s career.

Some other interesting tidbits provided by E! Online:

Eclipse vs. New Moon watch: After 19 days, Eclipse is at $264.9 million domestically; at the same time in its run, New Moon was at $257.5 million.

Last weekend’s champ, the 3-D-powered Despicable Me, got bumped down to second place, but otherwise held great. Its domestic total is now at $118.4 million.

The indie comedy-drama The Kids Are All Right made $1 million and a run at the Top 10 (it just missed) on the “strength” of 38 theaters. Its per-screen average was the best of the weekend–even bigger than Inception’s.

An aside: go see Inception. It was truly a mesmerizing and thought-provoking movie. Be forewarned that you should go to the bathroom before it starts because it’s a hefty film to sit through, but totally worth it. Check out pics of Leo arriving in Japan for the premiere of the film later this week!