'Ice Age' Debuts At #1 At Weekend Box Office

Prehistoric animals definitely knew something about survival. In the case of the cartoon creatures from the "Ice Age" franchise, they smartly slid into the box office on a weekend right between "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "The Dark Knight Rises" and were able to land the #1 spot without any major competition.

"Ice Age: Continental Drift" debuted with $46 million in receipts over the weekend, easily bumping Spidey from the top spot. The fourth entry in the franchise — featuring the voices of Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Aziz Ansari, Nicki Minaj and Jennifer Lopez, among others — opened slightly better than its 2009 predecessor but nowhere near the $68 million collected by the first sequel in 2006.

"Continental Drift" had already made $339 million overseas, where it opened in many cities last month.

As box-office experts predicted to MTV News, "The Amazing Spider-Man" (which incidentally also co-stars Leary) was #2 with another $35 million, bringing Sony's reboot to a $200.9 million domestic total. That's a drop of only 44 percent in the film's second week, which is a strong hold.

"Ted" was #3 with $22.1 million, putting the raunchy talking-teddy-bear comedy's total at $159 million. At San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend, director and writer Seth MacFarlane told an "American Dad" panel audience that he's "open to the possibility" of doing a sequel to the R-Rated hit.

"Brave" and "Magic Mike" took the #4 and #5 spots, respectively, at the weekend box office.

Speaking of Comic-Con, there's no question the box office will belong to the Caped Crusader this weekend. Tickets for midnight showings are already a hot commodity for Christopher Nolan's final entry in this Batman franchise, "The Dark Knight Rises," which is sure to dominate in terms of gross receipts.

Check out everything we've got on "Ice Age: Continental Drift" and "The Amazing Spider-Man."

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