Fox Searchlight Pictures' PG-13 rated urban appeal romantic comedy Brown Sugar opened in third place to a very promising ESTIMATED $11.05 million at 1,372 theaters ($8,054 per theater).

Brown Sugar's average per theater was the highest for any film playing in wide release this weekend.

Directed by Rick Famuyiwa, it stars Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan.

"We're thrilled and ecstatic," Fox Searchlight Pictures distribution president Stephen Gilula said Sunday morning. "It's just an excellent result. It's a delightful PG-13 romantic comedy with a great ensemble cast and it has great music. We've gotten an excellent response.

"We did a few exit surveys and we have an 85 percent definite recommend, which is superb. We also see signs of the film crossing over and spreading out from the core African-American audience so everything is very, very positive about this. It's a really strong movie that plays very well."

Will Searchlight go wider with Brown Sugar? "We might," Gilula replied. "We will see this week, depending upon what the demand is as we examine more closely how well it did around the country. It is a very, very crowded marketplace, but we are seeing some evidence of cross over following in the footsteps of what Barbershop was able to do."

Searchlight chose to take the film out this weekend, Gilula explained, because, "We knew there was a very strong core audience of African-American moviegoers who are very loyal when you have a good movie. And with our cast and (the fact that the film) tested very well and there was no other film (like it) coming in the market and it was already the fifth week of Barbershop, we were not too worried about the core constituency for this film.

"We knew what we have and felt the other films would be competing with each other, not with us. We knew that we would not be competing for number one, given the strength of Red Dragon and Sweet Home Alabama. But based on our screen average and our number of screens, it's a terrific result."

As for adding theaters, he said, "We will be talking about that tomorrow morning. I think there is a possibility of that. We just want to digest what's happened and see how far to go."

20th Century Fox's PG-13 rated action drama The Transporter kicked off in fourth place to an energetic ESTIMATED $9.15 million at 2,572 theaters ($3,558 per theater).

Directed by Cory Yuen, it stars Jason Statham and Shu Qi.

"A good start for a crowded weekend," Fox distribution president Bruce Snyder said Sunday morning.

Who was on hand? "It was largely male, of course," Snyder replied. "63 percent male. And evenly divided by age, under-25 and over-25, which I found somewhat surprising. So it played even a little older than one might expect."

IFC Films' release of Gold Circle Films and HBO's PG rated romantic comedy blockbuster My Big Fat Greek Wedding slid one slot to fifth place in its 26th week, still holding unbelievably well with an ESTIMATED $7.87 million (-4%) at 2,016 theaters (+45 theaters; $3,902 per theater). Its cume is approximately $158.4 million, heading for $175 million in domestic theaters.

Directed by Joel Zwick, it stars Nia Vardalos and John Corbett.