LOS ANGELES - Adam Sandler 's dark comedy Click debuted at the top of the North American box office, driving animated feature Cars into second place on its third weekend, according to studio estimates released Sunday.
The Sony Pictures release about a father who gets a TV-like remote control for life and fast-forwards to career success at the expense of family life took in $40 million on its opening weekend despite largely negative reviews.
Click, the only North American debut by a major studio this week, marked the fourth time since 1999 that a movie starring the former Saturday Night Live star opened to $40 million or above.
Most box office watchers are predicting that next week's opening of Superman Returns from Warner Bros could be a key indicator of whether the industry can shake off a two-year box office slump. The film has generated strong reviews and much publicity before its opening Wednesday.
As for Sandler , he once again proved he is a major box office draw.
"It is a terrific opening. Adam is probably one of the top celebrities that delivers in this way," said Rory Bruer, president of domestic distribution at Sony Pictures.
Bruer added that Click gave Sandler his best-ever opening in Australia, where the movie grossed $3 million over the weekend.
Last year's The Longest Yard gave Sandler his best opening weekend ever with a $47.6 million dollar gross over the key Memorial Day weekend holiday.
Click ousted the latest Disney-Pixar movie Cars from its two-week pole position at the box office. But the animated feature took in a solid $22.5 million, raising its total over three weeks to $155.9 million.
"It demonstrates that this movie has long legs," said Disney spokesman Dennis Rice.
Cars, which tells the story of a talking race car named Lightning McQueen, is the seventh Disney-Pixar film and the first collaboration since Walt Disney Co. acquired Pixar in January for $7.4 billion.
Taking the No. 3 spot at $12.1 million was Paramount's quirky comedy Nacho Libre in which actor Jack Black plays a cook in a Mexican orphanage who moonlights as a wrestler.
Waist Deep, a thriller aimed mainly at black and Latino audiences from the Rogue Pictures banner of Focus Features, was the only other wide debut this weekend. It earned fourth place with $9.4 million.
Street-racing franchise The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, took fifth place with tickets sales of $9.2 million.
Universal's The Break-Up, starring former "Friends" star Jennifer Aniston slipped to 7th place with $6.1 million but that was enough to push its cumulative box office haul past the key $100 million mark to $103.7 million.
Blockbusters X-Men: The Last Stand from 20th Century Fox and Sony's The Da Vinci Code remained in the top 10 with cumulative tallies of $224 million and $205.5 million respectively.
Individually, Hollywood's major studios are owned or controlled by conglomerates Time Warner Inc., The Walt Disney Co., Sony Corp, News Corp, General Electric Co and Viacom Inc.
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