It’s both a bear and bull market for Hollywood.
The bear is ‘‘Ted.’’ Mark Wahlberg and Seth MacFarlane’s comedy about a talking, foul-mouthed teddy bear, which was filmed in Boston, opened as the No. 1 movie with $54.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
And the bulls are baring it in the Warner Bros. release ‘‘Magic Mike,’’ Channing Tatum and Steven Soderbergh’s male-stripper tale that debuted a strong No. 2 with $39.2 million.
They were backed by Pixar Animation’s Disney fairy tale ‘‘Brave’’ at No. 3 with $34 million in its second weekend. ‘‘Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection’’ from Lionsgate Films opened at No. 4 with $26.4 million.
The four movies combined to keep Hollywood in the money compared with the same weekend last year, when ‘‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’’ launched with $97.9 million.
It was an equally big weekend overseas, where two huge franchises got a headstart on their US openings.
The 20th Century Fox animated sequel ‘‘Ice Age: Continental Drift’’ opened with $78 million in 34 international markets, while Sony’s ‘‘The Amazing Spider-Man’’ debuted with $50.2 million in 13 markets. ‘‘Amazing Spider-Man’’ opens domestically Tuesday for the Fourth of July weekend, while ‘‘Continental Drift’’ has its US debut July 13.
Domestic revenues totaled $207.7 million, up 3 percent from the same weekend in 2011, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. That was an accomplishment, considering the Fourth of July fell on Monday last year, making it a long holiday weekend.
‘‘It was absolutely astonishing that we’re beating the same weekend a year ago given the enormity of the film, the big sci-fi blockbuster that opened then,’’ said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. ‘‘This played out like a holiday weekend without it really being a holiday weekend. It speaks volumes about the importance of having a wide variety of films in the marketplace.’’
The only one that didn’t work among new wide releases was the sibling drama ‘‘People Like Us,’’ which tanked at No. 10 with $4.3 million. A DreamWorks release distributed by Disney, the movie features Chris Pine (Captain Kirk of ‘‘Star Trek”) as a man who gets himself into an awkward relationship with the half-sister (Elizabeth Banks) he never knew he had.
‘‘Ted’’ stars Wahlberg as a guy whose stuffed bear magically came to life when he was a boy, the two growing up together to become slacker, party-boy roommates. Writer-director MacFarlane, the creator of TV’s ‘‘Family Guy,’’ provides the voice of the bear, while ‘‘Family Guy’’ voice costar Mila Kunis plays Wahlberg’s girlfriend.
The idea of a cuddly teddy bear combined with a foul mouth and MacFarlane’s wicked sense of humor caught fire with audiences, who lifted ‘‘Ted’’ far beyond the opening of
$35 million or less that Hollywood generally expected.
In limited release, Fox Searchlight’s Louisiana story, ‘‘Beasts of the Southern Wild,’’ opened strongly with $169,236 in four theaters, for an average of $42,309 a cinema. That compares with an average of $16,705 in 3,239 theaters for ‘‘Ted.’’