Prehistoric animals definitely knew something about survival. In the case of the cartoon creatures from the "Ice Age" franchise, they smartly slid into the box office on a weekend right between "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "The Dark Knight Rises" and were able to land the #1 spot without any major competition.

"Ice Age: Continental Drift" debuted with $46 million in receipts over the weekend, easily bumping Spidey from the top spot. The fourth entry in the franchise — featuring the voices of Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Aziz Ansari, Nicki Minaj and Jennifer Lopez, among others — opened slightly better than its 2009 predecessor but nowhere near the $68 million collected by the first sequel in 2006.

"Continental Drift" had already made $339 million overseas, where it opened in many cities last month.

As box-office experts predicted to us "The Amazing Spider-Man" (which incidentally also co-stars Leary) was #2 with another $35 million, bringing Sony's reboot to a $200.9 million domestic total. That's a drop of only 44 percent in the film's second week, which is a strong hold.

"Ted" was #3 with $22.1 million, putting the raunchy talking-teddy-bear comedy's total at $159 million. At San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend, director and writer Seth MacFarlane told an "American Dad" panel audience that he's "open to the possibility" of doing a sequel to the R-Rated hit.

"Brave" and "Magic Mike" took the #4 and #5 spots, respectively, at the weekend box office.

Speaking of Comic-Con, there's no question the box office will belong to the Caped Crusader this weekend. Tickets for midnight showings are already a hot commodity for Christopher Nolan's final entry in this Batman franchise, "The Dark Knight Rises," which is sure to dominate in terms of gross receipts.

From MTV.com

Thumbnail via MTV.com