Despicable Me topples Eclipse to lead weekend on $60.1m

Voiced by Steve Carell, Julie Andrews, Russell Brand and Jason Segel, among others, the film was produced by former Fox Animation head Chris Meledandri’s new venture Illumination Entertainment.

Summit Entertainment’s The Twilight Saga: Eclipse fell to second place and tumbled approximately 49% to $33.4m. The supernatural tale has raced to $237m after less than two weeks in release. New Moon finished on $296.6m and Twilight took $192.8m.

Fox’s action horror tale Predators starring Adrien Brody, Topher Grace and Laurence Fishburne opened solidly in third place on $25.3m, while Toy Story 3 in fourth place has overtaken Finding Nemo to become the highest grossing Pixar release after four weekends on $340.2m.

Two films crossed $100m: Paramount’s The Last Airbender in fifth place stands at $100.2m after two weekends and Sony’s Grown Ups has reached $111.3m after three.

Music Box released the second Stieg Larsson film, The Girl Who Played With Fire, in 11^th place on $965,000 from 110, and Focus Features opened Lisa Cholodenko’s Sundance hit The Kids Are All Right on $505,000 from seven for an excellent $72,143 per-theatre average.

Next weekend’s wide releases bring Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures’ thriller Inception directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and Buena Vista’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice starring Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel.

Estimated Top 10 North America July 9-11 2010

Film (Dist) / Est wkd gross / Est total to date

1 (-) DespicableMe (Universal) UPI $60.1m –

2 (1) The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Summit) Summit Int’l $33.4m $237m

3 (-) Predators (Fox) Fox Int’l $25.3m –

4 (3) Toy Story 3 (Buena Vista) WDSMPI $22m $340.2m

5 (2) The Last Airbender (Paramount) PPI $17.2m $100.2m

6 (4) Grown Ups (Sony) SPRI $16.4m $111.3m

7 (5) Knight & Day (Fox) $7.9m $61.9m

8 (6) The Karate Kid (Sony) SPRI $5.7m $164.6m

9 (7) The A-Team (Fox) Fox Int’l $1.8m $73.9m

10 (11) Cyrus (Fox Searchlight) Fox Int’l $1.4m $3.5m