LOS ANGELES (AP) - Stars-on-ice Will Ferrell and Jon Heder took the box office gold for the weekend.
Paramount and DreamWorks' 'Blades of Glory,' with Ferrell and Heder playing figure-skating rivals who become the sport's first men's pair, debuted as the No. 1 movie with $33 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Disney's animated adventure 'Meet the Robinsons,' about the time-traveling journey of a brilliant but lonely orphan, debuted in second place with $25.1 million.
The previous weekend's top movie -- the Warner Bros. animated tale 'TMNT,' a revival of the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle' franchise -- slipped to fourth place with $9.2 million, down a steep 62 percent from its $24.3 million debut. 'TMNT' raised its 10-day total to $38.4 million.
After a monthlong surge, the overall box office declined. The top 12 movies took in $115 million, down 13 percent from the same weekend last year, when 'Ice Age: The Meltdown' opened with $68 million.
'This is still a good weekend, a pretty healthy one-two punch with Blades of Glory' and Meet the Robinsons' at the top,' said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
Movie attendance is up 4 percent so far this year, Dergarabedian said.
Teaming with 'Napoleon Dynamite' star Heder on 'Blades of Glory,' Ferrell scored the second-best opening of his career, behind last summer's 'Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,' which took in $47 million in its first weekend.
'It starts with a great concept, and the whole picture was cast so well,' said DreamWorks spokesman Marvin Levy. 'Another part of the surprise was, we got a ton of very, very good reviews.'
'Meet the Robinsons' played in about 3,400 theaters and did especially well in a 3-D version at 600 cinemas, said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Disney. The studio did not have a precise breakdown, but cinemas reported that screens playing the 3-D version pulled in about double the grosses of theaters running the regular 2-D version, Viane said.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. 'Blades of Glory,' $33 million.
2. 'Meet the Robinsons,' $25.1 million.
3. '300,' $11.2 million.
4. 'TMNT,' $9.2 million.
5. 'Wild Hogs,' $8.4 million.
6. 'Shooter,' $8 million.
7. 'Premonition,' $5.1 million.
8. 'The Last Mimzy,' $4 million.
9. 'The Hills Have Eyes 2,' $3.9 million.
10. 'Reign Over Me,' $3.7 million.
Universal Pictures and Focus Features are owned by NBC Universal, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and Vivendi Universal; Sony Pictures, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; DreamWorks, Paramount and Paramount Vantage are divisions of Viacom Inc.; Disney's parent is The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is a division of The Walt Disney Co.; 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros., New Line, Warner Independent and Picturehouse are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a consortium of Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Sony Corp., Comcast Corp., DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and Quadrangle Group; Lionsgate is owned by Lionsgate Entertainment Corp.; IFC Films is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.
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