Night at the Museum features exhibits which come to life

It took $36.7m (£18.7m) between Friday and Monday, up from $30.8m (£15.7m) the previous weekend.

Will Smith's drama The Pursuit of Happyness stayed in second place with an estimated take of $19.3m (£9.8m).

Musical Dreamgirls, starring Beyonce Knowles, jumped to third place from seventh despite a limited release.

Dreamgirls, which portrays a 1960s soul group loosely based on the Supremes, took $15.5m (£7.9m) despite playing in only 852 cinemas, compared to 3,768 screens for Night at the Museum.

NORTH AMERICAN BOX OFFICE 1. Night at the Museum ($36.7m) 2. The Pursuit of Happyness ($19.3m) 3. Dreamgirls (pictured, $15.5m) 4. Charlotte's Web ($12m) 5. The Good Shepherd ($10.98m) 6. Rocky Balboa ($10.79m) 7. Eragon ($8.3m) 8. We Are Marshall ($8.1m) 9. Happy Feet ($7.7m) 10. The Holiday ($6.7m) Source: Media by Numbers

In fourth place was Charlotte's Web, a film based on EB White's children's novel about a talking spider and a pig named Wilbur, made $12m (£6.12m).

The spy drama The Good Shepherd, about the origins of the Central Intelligence Agency, was fifth with $10.98m (£5.56m).

Rocky Balboa, the sixth instalment of Sylvester Stallone's Rocky franchise, was knocked out from third place, taking the sixth spot with $10.79m (£5.46m).

The dragon fantasy Eragon was seventh while former number one, the animated penguin flick Happy Feet, was still in the top ten with $7.7m (£3.9m) with total US takings at $178m (£90.2m).

The weekend's top 12 films took an estimated $145.4m (£73.7) over three days, nearly 11% more than the same period last year, according to the new figures.