Seth Macfarlane completed his conquering of the film world, to sit alongside his TV success, as the film he wrote, directed and starred in, 'Ted', topped the US Box Office over the weekend with robust takings of $54.1 million on the traditionally heavy grossing weekend before Independence Day.
Having dominated animated TV comedy for over a decade with the hit show 'Family Guy', MACfarlane brought several ideas and one key member of the cast along with him for his crack at the big screen, with Mila Kunis starring alongside him and Mark Wahlberg in the raunchy flick. Focusing, again, on an animal that could talk - in this case a toy bear - 'Ted' shows many of the hallmarks of MACfarlane's comedy style so frequently used in both 'Family Guy' and 'American Dad'.
It found favor enough to beat out Steven Soderbergh's 'Magic Mike', which also took solid opening figures of $39.2 million. Soderbergh's film stars Channing Tatum and is loosely based around the actor's experiences of working as a stripper before he'd made it in the acting world. In a weekend of largely solid openings, Tyler Perry's 'Madea's Witness Protection' was another to make its mark, taking $26.4 million - more than Perry's first 'Madea' film made last summer. There was disappointment for adult drama 'People Like Us' though, which took a poor $4.3 million.