Los Angeles, June 09: Street racing movie sequel "2 Fast 2 Furious" beat a computer-animated clown fish to the finish line at the North American box office, grossing $52.1 million its first three days in theaters, according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.
The follow-up to 2001's super-charged action film featuring fast cars and good-looking young actors surpassed the $40.1 opening of the original "Fast and Furious" to give distributor Universal Pictures its second consecutive wide release to open at No. 1 with more than $50 million in ticket sales.

Universal's last film, the Jim Carrey comedy "Bruce Almighty," lorded over the box office two weeks ago with $68 million in its first three days and nearly $86 million for the entire four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend.

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Last week's No. 1 film, the animated undersea adventure "Finding Demo," about an anxious clown fish trying to rescue his son from an aquarium, ranked a healthy No. 2 this weekend with $45.8 million in Friday-through-Sunday ticket sales.

"Nemo," the latest collaboration from Walt Disney Co. and Pixar Animation Studios Inc., saw its cumulative box-office total rise to $143.3 million.

"Bruce Almighty," starring Carrey as a TV newsman who gets to play God, grossed $21.7 million in its third weekend, sliding a notch to No. 3 and boosting its tally to $170.8 million.

As expected, "2 Fast," rated PG-13, did especially well with its target audience of young moviegoers, despite the sequel's absence of muscled action hero Vin Diesel. Universal's exit-polling showed that 75 percent of the film's audience was under age 25, divided 55 percent male, 45 percent female.

Overall movie business in the United States and Canada was exceptionally strong, with the top 12 films collectively grossing $157 million, up 52 percent over the same weekend a year ago, according to box office tracking service Exhibitor Relations Co.

Studio executives attributed the healthy numbers to a broad mix of motion pictures in the marketplace, from family friendly fare like "Nemo," "Bruce Almighty" and "Daddy Day Care" to action-heavy movies like "2 Fast 2 Furious," "The Italian Job," "The Matrix Reloaded" and "X2: X-Men United."

"There's something for everybody out there," said Nikki Rocco, president of distribution for Universal Pictures, a unit of Vivendi Universal.
Landing at No. 4 in its second weekend was another movie featuring a car chase, caper film "The Italian Job," a remake of a 1969 Michael Caine film, which grossed $13.3 million as it added play dates to another 244 theaters. "The Matrix Reloaded" was No. 5 with $9.1 million in ticket sales.

Rounding out the top 10 this weekend were: the Eddie Murphy comedy "Daddy Day Care" at No. 6 with 4.8 million, followed by "X2" (No. 7, $3 million), the thriller "Wrong Turn" (No. 8, $2.65 million), the Albert Brooks comedy "The In-Laws" (No. 9, $2 million), and the arthouse hit "Bend It Like Beckham" (No. 10, $975,000).