In seven days Milla Jojovich’s on-screen battle against killer zombies made $3.1 million in Canada and another US$28.3 million south of the border, making Resident Evil: Apocalypse far and away the most successful Canadian film of the year, besting all other contenders with a domestic per theater average of $11,800.

By comparison, the Quebec hit Le Dernier tunnel averaged $8,800, the more recent Going the Distance opened at roughly $3,000.

The action-horror pic, which premiered in first place across North America Sept. 10, is an 80/20 treaty coproduction between Canada and the U.K., arranged here by producer Don Carmody (Chicago, Gothika). Roughly 60% of its many special effects were also done in Canada, by companies including Frantic Films, Mr. X and C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures.

The pic, with a reported budget of US$50 million, follows 2002’s Resident Evil. Both are based on the popular videogame franchise and were shot in Toronto.

Other companies attached are Constantin Film of Germany, France’s Davis-Films and Impact Pictures of the U.K. The production in Canada was handled by a shell company, Davis Impact Canada, with Carmody as president. The pic is distributed in Canada by Alliance Atlantis.

In other box-office news, teen gross-out jokes did not pay off nearly as well for Intern Academy as they did last month for Going the Distance. The Dave Thomas-directed comedy – which opened on 97 screens across English Canada on Sept. 10 – made just $111,000 in its opening week, enough to hit the number three spot among domestic movies but, at roughly $1,150 per theater, far below the late-summer magic of Distance, which after four weeks has coined $1.2 million from essentially the same material.

Intern Academy rolled back to 62 theaters for its second week, its total box office standing at $141,000. It will play on just six screens for its third week, according to distributor TVA Films.

Now that its audience has gone back to school, Going the Distance is also slowing down, dropping to just 35 theaters from more than 100 and plateau-ing above the million-dollar mark.

The week’s other debut – Comment conquerir l’Amerique en une nuit from newbie director Dany Laferriere and distrib Equinoxe Films – unspooled at seven theaters to the healthy tune of $19,000, propelled, no doubt, by its recent win for best fiction film at the Montreal World Film Festival.