Seth MacFarlane’s raunchy R-rated Ted 2 isn’t generating the laughs everyone expected.
The $68 million comedy, reuniting MacFarlane with Mark Wahlberg, eked out a third-place finish Friday, grossing $13.2 million from 3,442 locations for a projected $34 million debut in North America, well behind the $54 million launch of Ted in summer 2012.
That leaves the race for No. 1 between holdovers Jurassic World and Inside Out. The two box-office champs are in a close contest, with both projected to gross in the $49-$50 million range.
Ted 2, about the adventures of a raunchy bear and his sidekick (MacFarlane voices the bear) was tracking to open in the mid- to high-$40 million range, but bad reviews and a B+ CinemaScore are likely hurting it (the first earned an A-). Media Rights Capital produced and financed the movie, with Universal handling distribution duties.
The original Ted was a box-office sensation, grossing $549.4 million to become one of the top R-rated comedies of all time.
MacFarlane produced the live action/CG-animated comedy alongside Bluegrass Films’ Scott Stuber, Jason Clark and John Jacobs. The sequel adds Amanda Seyfried, John Slattery and Morgan Freeman, while New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady makes a cameo.
The weekend’s other new nationwide offering, Max, is looking to do more modest business, with a debut in the $12 million-$13 million range, slightly ahead of expectations, after earning $4.4 million Friday from 2,857 locations.
From MGM, the family friendly film, costing less than $20 million to make, follows the relationship between a dog who returns from service in Afghanistan traumatized by his handler’s death, and the dead Marine’s son, with whom the dog develops a relationship.
Warner Bros. is releasing and marketing Max on behalf of MGM. On Friday, the studio celebrated crossing $1 billion in 2015 domestic box office revenue, becoming the only major Hollywood studio to attain the milestone 15 years in a row. To boot, it is the fastest the studio has reached $1 billion.
Among the top two players, Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out narrowly beat Jurassic World on Friday with $15 million versus $14.7 million, but some are giving Universal’s Jurassic World a slight edge for the weekend.
On Friday, Jurassic World continued to smash records, becoming the fastest film to hit $450 million domestically. To boot, it’s now the top-grossing film of 2015 to date, finishing Friday with $460.8 million in ticket sales and overtaking Avengers: Age of Ultron ($451.2 million). By the end of the weekend, Jurassic World‘s domestic total is likely to be near $500 million. Only four films have crossed the $500 million mark at the domestic box office, the last being The Dark Knight.
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This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter
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