Los Angeles - Lee Daniels' The Butler, a civil rights drama starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, easily won the weekend box office battle, pulling in $25m from US and Canadian ticket sales through Sunday.
Jennifer Aniston comedy We're the Millers finished second in its second week in release, earning $17.8m and beating Kick-Ass 2, a comedy sequel about a teenage crime-fighting duo, which came in fourth with $13.57m in its first three days, according to studio estimates.
The Matt Damon sci-fi thriller Elysium finished third in its second week, with $13.6m.
The Butler, featuring Winfrey's first acting role since 1998, is inspired by the life of Eugene Allen, an African-American White House butler who served eight US presidents.
Whitaker plays the butler opposite Winfrey, his chain-smoking, hard-drinking wife, Gloria. It was directed by Lee Daniels.
Kick-Ass 2, a follow-up to the 2010 original, stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a nerdy teenage boy who fights injustice as costumed superhero Kick-Ass. Chloe Moretz plays his sidekick known as Hit Girl.
In We're the Millers, Aniston stars as a stripper who poses as the wife of a small-time pot dealer, played by Jason Sudeikis, to help smuggle marijuana into the United States.
The privately held Weinstein Co distributed The Butler. Kick-Ass 2 was released by Universal Pictures, a unit of Comcast. Warner Bros, a unit of Time Warner, released We're the Millers. Sony Corp's movie studio released Elysium.
