NEW YORK — “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” served up a second helping at the box office, topping the weekend with $17 million according to studio estimates Sunday.

That was enough to lead all films on a late August weekend known as a dumping ground for studios following their summer blockbusters and before the start of the fall movie-going season. Daniels’ historical drama about a long-serving White House butler, starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, last weekend opened with $24.6 million for the Weinstein Co.

Three new releases failed to catch on. The teen fantasy “Mortal Instruments: City of Bones,” adapted from the popular young adult book series, opened tepidly in third with $9.3 million on the weekend and $14 million since opening Wednesday. With franchise hopes, Sony Screen Gems has already started production on a sequel, again starring Lily Collins as a New York teenager who discovers she has mystical powers.

Edgar Wright’s pub-crawl-gone-wrong comedy “The World’s End” opened with $8.9 million for Focus Features. That was a better start for “The World’s End,” which stars Simon Pegg, than Wright’s last film, 2007’s “Hot Fuzz.”