Superbad is a superstar at the US box office

It’s a good week – heck, a good year – to be Judd Apatow. Because the comedy producer’s magic touch hasn’t deserted him yet. Superbad – which stars Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, was written by Knocked Up star Seth Rogen and directed by Greg Mottola (we have to add that or he’ll kick us in the giblets) arrived at the US box office this weekend with a strong $31.2 million. It might not seem like the biggest opening, but when your budget is less than $20 million, it’s certainly a huge success. And considering that pre-weekend estimates had pegged the filthy comedy at around 20 million, it’s confounded even the high expectations.

Things definitely didn’t turn out so well for the misfiring sci-fi thriller The Invasion, but that’s going to have to wait its turn, since the Nicole Kidman movie barely scraped into the top five. Second place found Rush Hour 3 dropping 55.5% and making $21.8 million, which brings its total up to $88.2 million.

In third The Bourne Ultimatum continues to do well, nabbing $18.99 million in its third week and shoving its total up to $163.8 million. And fourth was The Simpsons Movie, which saw off its fourth weekend in the charts with $6.7 million, for a very healthy $165.1 million to date.

And what’s this at fifth? Yes, it’s The Invasion – the film that’s been through a lot of re-writes and re-shoots and still couldn’t draw in much interest despite the presence of Kidman and Daniel Craig. The 75th (or thereabouts) remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers hardly took over audiences, sucking in just $6 million even though it opened in 2,776 cinemas across the states. Sadly Stardust continued to have trouble finding an audience after last week’s slow opening, dropping 43% and finding just $5.2 million this weekend. It now has $19.1 million in the US alone.

At seventh, Hairspray danced across the $100 million mark in its fifth week of release, with its total now up to $100.5 million. Eighth was live-action superhero hound Underdog, which dropped two places and made $3.6 million, just ahead of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, which slipped one place to ninth and conjured up $3.54 million. And finally in 10th place (down from seventh), I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry prepared to leave the charts by making $3.5 million, which brings its total US earnings to $110.3 million.