‘Ted’ & ‘Magic Mike’ Rule Atop the Box Office; Perform Wildly Beyond Expectations

A foul-mouthed teddy bear and a bunch of male strippers highlighted by Channing Tatum have taken control of the box office over the weekend as Seth Macfarlane’s comedy Ted squared off against Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike.

Ted, starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, collected an impressive $54.1 million on opening weekend, easily dwarfing industry expectations of about $25 million. This is one of the best opening ever for a R-rated film which enjoyed broad-based appeal from a simple comedic concept as well as excellent positioning on the release calendar.

As you may remember, the movie was shuffled around from an initial July 13 release date to June 29 to get out of the way of The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises, two highly anticipated blockbusters that would have siphoned away most of Ted‘s audience. Instead, Ted ended up following in the footsteps of two animated movies (Madagascar 3 and Brave) with audiences starving for a raunchy comedy.

Ted’s audience skewed male (56 percent) and was unsurprisingly made up of younger men (52 percent were 30 years of age and under). The film was well received with an excellent “A-” CinemaScore which should point to some good word-of-mouth in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the male strippers of Magic Mike were very popular as well, claiming an estimated $39.2 million over the weekend, well beyond expectations of about $30 million. Channing Tatum is quietly putting together an excellent year as this is the third film he is starring in this year that has had a $36+ million opening weekend.

The movie only received a “B” CinemaScore despite being the best-reviewed movie of the week (78% Rotten Tomatoes score) so it’s likely that the movie will fade away rather quickly due to the very big releases coming out in the next couple weeks.

Finally, Disney-Pixar’s princess fairy tale Brave took third with $34 million, raising the film’s 10 day tally to $131 million.

Despite strong attendance for most of the year, ticket sales have dwindled to only 7% ahead of last year ‘s pace, a disappointing turn of event after a torrid run during the first four months of the year.