Movie audiences accepted a proposal from Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, who scored the summer's first big romantic comedy hit.
Bullock and Reynolds' The Proposal took in $34.1 (NZ$53.4) million to open as the weekend's No. 1 movie, according to studio estimates on Sunday.
The Disney flick delivered the biggest opening ever for Bullock, nearly double that of her previous best of US$17.6 million for the 2007 paranormal thriller Premonition.
Bullock stars as a ruthless publishing executive who coerces her put-upon assistant (Reynolds) into a fake marriage so she can avoid deportation back to her native Canada.
"I think the market was ready for a really fun, broad romantic comedy," said Mark Zoradi, president of Disney's motion-picture group.
The Proposal took over the top spot from the Warner Bros. bachelor-party comedy The Hangover, which slipped to second place with US$26.9 million. A surprise smash hit, The Hangover raised its total to US$152.9 million.
Disney's animated adventure Up was No. 3 with US$21.3 million, lifting its total to US$224.1 million and following Paramount's Star Trek as the second movie of 2009 to cross the US$200 million mark.
Debuting in the fourth spot with US$20.2 million was Sony's caveman comedy Year One, starring Jack Black and Michael Cera as Neanderthals on a road trip after they are banished from their village.
It was summer's second big-name comedy set in prehistoric times to take a back seat to a wedding-themed romp. Will Ferrell's Land of the Lost opened at No. 3 in early June, the same weekend The Hangover pulled off a No. 1 upset.
"June is officially comedy month at the theaters. Comedy is really ruling things," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com.
Woody Allen's latest comedy, Whatever Works, had a strong start in limited release, hauling in US$280,720 in nine theatres for an average of US$31,191 a cinema. That compares to an average of US$11,163 in 3,056 theatres for The Proposal and US$6,684 in 3,022 cinemas for Year One.
Released by Sony Pictures Classics, Whatever Works stars Larry David as a misanthropic New Yorker who forges unlikely relationships with a conservative Southern family (Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr.).
While some of June's comedies performed well, the month generally has been a downer for Hollywood, which tore through the first part of the year with a record box-office pace.
Revenues this weekend were up slightly compared to the same period a year ago, but that followed three straight weekends of declining box-office receipts.
For the year, revenue remains up a solid 10 percent, though summer ticket sales are dead even with last year's, Dergarabedian said.
That should turn around this coming weekend with the debut of the blockbuster sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which industry analysts say could deliver the year's first $100 million opening.
Paramount's Transformers sequel got off to a big start in Great Britain and Japan, where it opened this weekend in advance of its US debut Wednesday, pulling in US$14.1 million in Britain and US$5.8 million in Japan.
