Paramount’s Transformers adventure stayed top of the North American charts and pulled in an estimated $47m as the running total climbed to $261m after two weekends.

Combined with the $384m international tally the third film in the series stands at $645m. There is quite a way to go, however, before the film gets near to the $319.2m final North American gross of the 2007 original, let alone the $402.1m generated by Revenge Of The Fallen in 2009.

Warner Bros opened New Line’s comedy Horrible Bosses starring Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell in second place on $28.1m while Sony/MGM’s family release Zookeeper starring Kevin James debuted third on $21m.

Pixar’s Cars 2 in fourth place has reached $148.8m for Disney after three weekends and Sony’s Bad Teacher in fifth place stands at $78.8m, also after three.

Vendome/Playtone’s Tom Hanks-Julia Roberts rom-com Larry Crowne in sixth place has taken $26.5m through Universal after two weekends.

Next weekend sees the end of an era as Warner Bros unleashes Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2. By way of counter-programming for parents of young children, Buena Vista opens Winnie The Pooh.

Estimated Top 10 North America Jul 8-10, 2011
Film (Dist) / Est wkd gross / Est total to date

1 (1) Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (Paramount) PPI $47m $261m

2 (-) Horrible Bosses (Warner Bros/New Line) WBPI $28.1m –

3 (-) Zookeeper (Sony/MGM) SPRI $21m –

4 (2) Cars 2 (Buena Vista/Pixar) WDSMPI $15.2m $148.8m

5 (3) BadTeacher (Sony) SPRI $9m $78.8m

6 (4) Larry Crowne (Universal) Summit Int’l $6.3m $26.5m

7 (5) Super 8 (Paramount) PPI $4.8m $118.1m

8 (6) Monte Carlo (Fox) Fox Int’l $3.8m $16.1m

9 (7) Green Lantern (Warner Bros) WBPI $3.1m $109.7m

10 (8) Mr Popper’s Penguins (Fox) Fox Int’l $2.9m $57.7m