It’s official, Ted , a movie about a talking teddy bear who forms a friendship with Mark Wahlberg has taken the top spot at this weekends box office. The Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, The Cleveland Show) created movie played on 3,239 screens and also starred Mila Kunis.
Ted not only won the box office, it became the third-best debut ever for an R rated comedy behind only Sex and the City ($57 million) and The Hangover II ($85.9 million).
The movie was helped along by MacFarlane who had appeared in a 90-second TV-spot during an airing of Family Guy. During that commercial airing Seth MacFarlane urged his cartoon fans to head off to see the movie while pointing them towards a red-band trailer found online.
Ted was also helped along by excellent reviews including a CinemaScore grade of “A-” which has led some analysts to believe that Universal Pictures could end up with a $200 million hit on its hands. For a movie that cost just $50 million to produce its early success could mean a great return on profits for the studio.
According to Universal the movie was helped along by a strong 56% male audience who were typically 30 or older.
Falling behind Ted was Magic Mike, the stripper film about Channing Tatum’s real-life past. For a male stripper movie the flick did well with $39.2 million and as expected it was made up of a 73 percent female audience. Magic Mike earned much of its box office during a $19.4 million opening day box office take. The film was privately financed with $7 million from Steven Soderbergh, Channing Tatum, and Matthew McConaughey and distribution rights were then picked up for $7 million by Warner Brothers.
In third place this weekend was Disney-Pixar’s $185 million flick Brave which dropped by 49 percent to $34 million. Brave has now earned $131.7 million after two weekends. The children friendly flick is expected to surpass the $200 million mark, barely etching out a profit.
Rounding out the top 5 were Tyler Perry flick Madea’s Witness Protection with $26.4 million and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted with $11.8 million.
Here’s the Ted red band trailer:
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