Lots of love for 'Couples Retreat' at box office

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(AFP)

Relationship comedy "Couples Retreat" shot to the top of the North American box office in its first week of release, according to preliminary figures on Sunday.

The movie, starring comic favorites Vince Vaughn and Jason Bateman, follows four couples at a retreat where their relationships come under a little more scrutiny than they would like.

The movie scored 35.3 million dollars to knock down tongue-in-cheek comedy "Zombieland" to the number two spot, according to figures from Exhibitor Relations.

The gory-but-hilarious take on a zombie invasion, starring Woody Harrelson, took 15 million dollars in its second week in theaters.

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," the animated tale of an island rained on by junk food, also fell a place to number three, earning 12 million in box office receipts.

Falling to fourth place was the re-release -- in 3-D format -- of the popular Pixar cartoons "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2", which took 7.7 million together. The films came ahead of the much-anticipated "Toy Story 3," due out next year.

At fifth place was low-budget horror movie "Paranormal Activity," which earned seven million dollars and shot up from number 20 after a limited release was expanded this week.

Futuristic Bruce Willis action film "Surrogates" -- about people living their lives through sexy robot replicas of themselves -- took sixth place with 4.1 million dollars.

Seventh spot was taken by "The Invention of Lying," which stars British comedian Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner as a couple living in an alternative reality where nobody ever lies. The film took 3.4 million dollars.

Drew Barrymore's directorial debut "Whip It" -- set in the world of all-female roller derbies with "Juno" star Ellen Page -- was eighth with 2.8 million dollars.

Ninth spot was occupied by controversial documentarian Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story", with 2.7 million dollars.

Rounding out the top ten was "Fame," an updated version of the 1980 musical, which earned 2.6 million dollars in its third week in theaters.