The hilarious yellow-skinned family of the Simpsons has already charmed the whole world with their more or less innocent stupidity and joy. The movie has been waited for by many fans, so that it could sell lots of tickets in home country North America and everywhere else.

“The Simpsons Movie” has been announced by its distributor, 20th Century Fox, to have already grossed about $168 million at the box office just during its first weekend of release. The North Americans have bought tickets of about $71.85 million, for example, which has made “The Simpsons Movie” the fifth-highest opening of the year 2007. Ironically, its own distributor, 20th Century Fox has allegedly said that it had expected for the animated comedy to open in the $40 million range. However, it seems that everybody has been positively surprised and “The Simpsons Movie” has really made it to the top of the box office!

Grossing about $96 million from other 71 territories excepting North America, the international comedy has seemed to satisfy all its old fans, who have been charmed by the strange American family since their first appearance about 20 years ago. In Britain and Germany the comedy has sold $27.8 million and $14.2 million respectively worth of tickets. The movie has marked these two countries’ markets with its being the third-biggest opening comedy. It has also set all-time opening records in other countries such as Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and Finland.

“The Simpsons Movie” hasn’t been simultaneously released in the world, like other recent hit movies, such as “Spider-Man” or “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”. It will still be rolling over the next few weeks, and in Japan the movie will open only in March 2008, as the distributor 20th Century Fox has said that Japan “is not an entrenched market” for “The Simpsons Movie”.

However, the comedy has shifted the No. 1 spot from “Adam Sandler’s “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry”, which has slipped to No. 2 with only $71.6 million during its 10 days of release. It seems that the end of July has been marked by good comedy movies that have been also good-selling movies.