The box office battle between R-rated newcomers “Ted” and “Magic Mike” was close on Friday, but by weekend’s end, “Ted” stands alone as the clear winner.
Not expected to resonate well with Saturday date crowds, “Mike” was excessively frontloaded, earning roughly half of its $39.1 million gross on Friday. That enabled “Ted,” which had a more typical weekend trajectory, to easily claim first place on $54.1 million in receipts.
Still, the female-skewing “Magic Mike” managed to crush $20-25 million projections, and no one will be shedding tears over such an impressive total.
Both new releases obliterated forecasts, which kept holdover “Brave” from contending for the top spot. Still, at $34 million, “Brave” performed reasonably well this weekend and topped the $100 million milestone by Friday.
“Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection” performed slightly better than expected, scoring an also-impressive $26.4 million. That gave it the clean edge over fifth place finisher “Madagascar 3” ($11.8 million).
“People Like Us,” the only other major new release, garnered just $4.3 million, emerging as the weekend’s sole disappointment. It finished in tenth.