LOS ANGELES -- "Superbad" was super good at the box office, proving that a no-name cast could hold its own amid A-list summer blockbusters.
"Superbad" knocked off the previous weekend's top flick, New Line's "Rush Hour 3," which slipped to second place with $21.8 million, raising its total to $88.2 million.
The Warner Bros. sci-fi tale "The Invasion," starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig in an update of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," opened a weak No. 5 with $6 million.
"Superbad" maintains the pattern of producer Judd Apatow's earlier hits, "Knocked Up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," which he directed. Apatow and his collaborators, including "Knocked Up" star and "Superbad" co-writer and co-star Seth Rogen, package crude, R-rated humor with clever, authentic dialogue far smarter than what's normally seen in summer comedies.
Shot on a modest $20 million budget, "Superbad" had a slightly better debut than "Knocked Up," which opened in June with $30.7 million and went on become a $100 million hit.
"I think a genuinely funny movie always has a shot at doing well, because so few movies are really funny," Apatow told the Associated Press.
"Superbad," co-written by Rogen and his high school best friend Evan Goldberg, stars Jonah Hill and Michael Cera as pals on a quest for alcohol to impress the foxy host of a party. Rogen costars as an inept cop who ends up carousing with the teens, while Christopher Mintz-Plasse proves a scene-stealer as Hill and Cera's super-geeky friend.
Overall Hollywood revenues rose with the top 12 movies taking in $110.5 million, up 21 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Snakes on a Plane" opened at No. 1 with $15.2 million. Movie attendance is running 5 percent ahead of last summer's, according to Media By Numbers.
The Weinstein Co. release "The Last Legion," featuring Ben Kingsley in an action tale set in ancient Rome, tanked with $2.6 million, finishing at No. 12.
In narrower release, MGM's comedy "Death at a Funeral," a tale of outrageous goings-on at a British patriarch's farewell, opened solidly with $1.3 million.
Warner Independent's "The 11th Hour," a global-crisis documentary on ecological issues co-written, coproduced, and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, debuted well in four theaters with $56,000.