Weekend Box-Office: June 29-July 1, 2012

Foul-mouthed Ted gets a big-bucks hug!

Looks like audiences left the kids at home this weekend! A pair of R-rated flicks ruled the box office chart this week, nearly cutting Pixar’s princess in half on their way to the top.

The Mark Wahlberg/CG bear comedy TED felt the love with an opening of $54.1 million. The feature directing debut of “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane only cost around $50 million, and marks the first comedy (with actual humans on screen, anyway) to really score this summer. And as R-rated comedies go, TED’s opening ranks behind only THE HANGOVER PART II ($85.9M) and SEX AND THE CITY ($57M). It’s also the second-biggest opening for Wahlberg, after 2001’s remake of PLANET OF THE APES ($68.5M).

The swinging schlongs and buff bods of MAGIC MIKE were a solid second with $39.1 million. The ladies (and more than a few fellas) flooded theaters on Friday to ogle the oiled pecs, abs and glutes of star Channing Tatum and his all-dude dancing crew.

Tatum and director Steven Soderbergh must be plenty thrilled — not only is the story partially based on the stripping history of C-Tates, but the pair basically paid to make the movie out of their pockets. Co-star Alex Pettyfer might be slightly less thrilled though — Hollywood has been trying to push this guy on us for a while, but the movie in which he plays second banana (ahem) to Tatum is the one that opens way bigger than his own starring roles (BEASTLY – $9.8M, I AM NUMBER FOUR – $19.4M).

With adults claiming many of the tickets this weekend, Pixar’s BRAVE slid into third place with $34 million, around 49% less than last weekend’s debut. But with the young ones out of school, the digitoon has been cruising all during the week and has amassed $131.6M in 10 days.

But it wasn’t all about a vulgar stuffed animal, gyrating groins and redhead redemption, as Tyler Perry once again slipped on the wig and muumuu, and found people happily paying for the sight. TYLER PERRY’S MADEA’S WITNESS PROTECTION opened with $26.3 million, ranking it third out of Perry’s cross-dressing adventures (behind MADEA GOES TO JAIL and MADEA’S FAMILY REUNION, but ahead of MADEA’S BIG HAPPY FAMILY and DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN). As is typical for Perry, he also more than made back his production budget on the first weekend (WITNESS PROTECTION cost around $20M).

As MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE’S MOST WANTED kept ambling with another $11.8 million (and a $424M worldwide total), ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER took an ax in the face, losing 63% of its business from its modest opening with just $6 million in its second week and bringing it to a stark $29M total. By contrast, director Timur Bekmambetov’s R-rated WANTED opened to $50.9M and went on to a $134.5M domestic take, plus another $207M internationally.

PROMETHEUS and SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN still hang around the bottom half of the chart, while Wes Anderson’s MOONRISE KINGDOM makes a return trip as it expands onto a few hundred more screens. With all the action, comedy and other alternatives available, it doesn’t seem like anyone was too interested in straight-up drama — PEOPLE LIKE US (led by NuKirk Chris Pine) barely squeaked into the Top 10 with $4.3 million.

And after two months in the Top 10, THE AVENGERS fall off the chart (along with MEN IN BLACK III, ROCK OF AGES and THAT’S MY BOY), but don’t worry — another member of the Marvel Universe (comic, but not movie universe, unfortunately) will be swinging into theaters in just a couple of days.

On Tuesday, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN reboot wall-crawls onto screens (it’s already opened in some foreign territories to $50+ million), Thursday offers the documentary KATY PERRY: PART OF ME, and Friday gives us 2012’s third attempt at Taylor Kitsch stardom with Oliver Stone’s cartel thriller SAVAGES. How much to you think THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN will end up making this summer? VOTE HERE!