LOS ANGELES — A foul-mouthed Teddy bear is no match for a pack of dinosaurs.
Seth MacFarlane's "Ted 2" opened far under expectations with $32.9 million, according to Rentrak estimates Sunday, ceding the top two spots to holdovers "Jurassic World" and "Inside Out."
While $32.9 million is a solid opening for an R-rated comedy, bigger things were expected from "Ted 2," which cost a reported $68 million to produce.
The Universal Pictures sequel was expected to earn somewhere in the $50 million range going into its debut weekend, thanks to the record-setting precedent of the first film, which earned $54.4 million in 2012.
In addition to mediocre reviews, perhaps the initial intrigue around a raunchy stuffed animal has worn off a bit.
"It's hard to maintain that hyper level of excitement once people have seen the talking Teddy bear," Rentrak's Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian said. "In comedy, it's about inventiveness, newness and the shock value of something original."
Universal's domestic distribution head, Nick Carpou, said that the positive response from exit polls indicates a promising life for the movie in the weeks ahead.
"We could have had a higher gross, but we get the gross we get. It was a very competitive marketplace this weekend," said Carpou, who noted that the first film's gross was a massive surprise to the studio.