A potty-mouthed, hooker-loving, degenerate-but- loveable teddy bear is sitting atop the North American box office this weekend, as "Ted" opens with a $54.1 million estimated take.
And a movie about male strippers, "," debuted in second place, with a jaw-dropping $39.3 million in estimated ticket sales.
In the top 10, "Magic Mike" and "People Like Us" were shot in parts of Studio City.
Both movies vastly outperformed predictions, according to movie industry analysts.
"Ted" got "a much better-than-expected debut" and is the biggest R- rated, non-sequel opener in Hollywood history, said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergerabedian. "Great word-of-mouth made this a fairy take weekend for Seth MacFarlane and company."
And the male stripper flick got a "terrific, better-than-expected debut, as women stuffed the box office with singles," Degerabedian said.
Over at the G-rated end of the ticket booths, "Brave" dropped just 49 percent from its opening weekend and was on track to turn in $34 million in domestic sales. Its international cume so far is $158.5 million for Disney.
"Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection" opened in fourth place, with an unusual crossover appeal to non-black audiences, Dergerabedian said. It opened with a $26.4 million showing to audiences that were 30 percent non- black, as opposed to the normal figure of 20 percent.
"Madagascar 3-D: Europe's Most Wanted" was on track for a $11.8 million weekend, good for fifth, and has earned about $180 million domestically in four weeks.
Rounding out the 10 most-popular films this weekend, as judged by box office receipts from the United States and Canada reported by the studios and gathered by Hollywood.com, were "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" ($6 million), " ($4.9 million"), "Moonrise Kingdom" ($4.9 million), "" ($4.4 million) and " (debuting in the top 10 with ($4.3 million).
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