Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- The campy thriller ``Snakes on a Plane'' opened as the weekend's top film in U.S. and Canadian theaters with an estimated $15.3 million in ticket receipts.

The film from New Line Cinema beat out Universal Pictures' new release ``Accepted,'' which was fourth with sales of $10.1 million and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.'s ``Material Girls,'' which debuted in ninth place, Exhibitor Relations Co. said today in a statement.

Part horror film and part comedy, ``Snakes on a Plane,'' starring Samuel L. Jackson, benefited from Internet discussions among movie fans. New Line, a unit of Time Warner Inc., encouraged the grass-roots enthusiasm and even made some changes in the script, adding violent scenes, in response, Exhibitor Relations President Paul Dergarabedian said.

``It opened on the lower end of expectations,'' which ranged as high as $35 million, said Gitesh Pandya, editor of New York- based boxofficeguru.com, in an interview. ``It exhausted most of its fan base on Thursday and Friday and didn't really cross over to other audience segments. It's going to erode pretty quickly.''

`Accepted'

In the film, Jackson stars as an FBI agent escorting a witness from Hawaii to Los Angeles to testify against a mob boss in a murder case. Gangsters try to thwart the testimony by putting a shipment of deadly snakes on the plane in crates timed to open over the Pacific. The movie had a production budget of about $35 million, according to the Internet Movie Data Base.

``Talladega Nights,'' the Will Ferrell comedy about a stock car driver who loses his nerve, dropped to second place after two weeks in first. The film had sales of $14.1 million, raising its three-week total to $114.7 million.

``World Trade Center,'' Oliver Stone's film about two police officers trapped in the rubble of the Sept. 11 attacks, remained in third place with $10.8 million in box office receipts. The film, starring Nicolas Cage, was released by Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures.

Fourth place's ``Accepted'' stars Justin Long as a recent high school graduate who creates his own ``university'' on the Internet after his applications to several schools are rejected.

$400 Million for `Pirates'

``Step Up'' from Walt Disney Co. fell to fifth from second with sales of $9.87 million. Paramount's animated ``Barnyard: The Original Party Animals'' fell to sixth from fourth with $7.49 million in revenue.

News Corp.'s ``Little Miss Sunshine'' rose to seventh from 12th, making it among the week's biggest surprises, Pandya said. Sales more than doubled to $5.68 million. The film is benefiting from good reviews and wider distribution, and it will continue appearing in more theaters through Labor Day weekend, he said.

``Word of mouth is great,'' Pandya said. ``It's set up for a prolonged run at the box office.''

Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Toni Collette and Steve Carell play a family who hit the road in a Volkswagen bus to go to a child beauty pageant.

Walt Disney's ``Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest'' starring Johnny Depp, dropped to eighth from sixth with $5 million in receipts. The film became the seventh ever to top $400 million in U.S. sales, Exhibitor Relations said. The movie is the second in a trilogy.

``What's great for Disney is they have another `Pirates' coming out next year,'' Pandya said.

`Material Girls'

U.S. sales of the second ``Pirates'' may reach $420 million, he said, while its global sales are at about $900 million and probably will exceed $1 billion. Only ``Titanic'' and the ``Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,'' the final installment in the ``Lord of the Rings'' trilogy, have reached the $1 billion mark, Pandya said.

Ninth place's ``Material Girls,'' which made $4.62 million, stars sisters Hilary and Haylie Duff as heiresses whose cosmetics fortune is threatened by scandal. They take matters into their own hands in a bid to clear their father's name and save the company.

Weinstein Co.'s ``Pulse'' fell to 10th from fifth with sales of $3.53 million.

Sales for the top 12 films fell 7.6 percent to an estimated $91.3 million from the year-earlier period, Encino, California- based Exhibitor Relations said.

    Movie          Rev  Screens  Wks   Average/  Pct   Total
                   Mln                  Screen   Chg    Mln
 1. Snakes       $15.3   3,555    1    $4,290     --   $ 15.3
 2. Talladega     14.1   3,741    3     3,769    -36    114.7
 3. World Trade   10.8   2,998    2     3,602    -42     45.0
 4. Accepted      10.1   2,914    1     3,466     --     10.1
 5. Step Up        9.87  2,639    2     3,739    -52     39.5
 6. Barnyard       7.49  3,227    3     2,321    -23     45.9
 7. Little Miss    5.68    691    4     8,213    118     12.8
 8. Pirates        5.0   2,277    7     2,201    -31    401.1
 9. Material Girls 4.62  1,509    1     3,062     --      4.6
10. Pulse          3.53  2,323    2     1,519    -57     14.7

To contact the reporters on this story: Michael White in Los Angeles at mwhite8@bloomberg.net; Jack Kaskey in New York at jkaskey@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 20, 2006 15:47 EDT