Defying critics as well as competition from two new releases, the DC comics-inspired "Suicide Squad" topped the US box office for a second straight weekend, estimates from industry tracker Exhibitor Relations showed.

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The action film, in which Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie play a band of deadly criminals hired to carry out risky secret missions, chalked up $43.8 million in sales on North American screens over the three-day weekend.

That was down sharply from its opening weekend take of $133.7 million, but still enough to edge out new releases "Sausage Party" and "Pete`s Dragon."

"Sausage Party," an animated adult comedy from Sony, with Seth Rogen voicing the lead meat product, is what Variety called "a madcap crazy salad of industrial-strength raunch." It netted $33.6 million.

"Pete`s Dragon" tells the tale of an orphan boy and the (computer-animated) dragon who befriends him. Disney`s remake of the original 1977 film, this time with Robert Redford as one of the townspeople who believes in the elusive dragon, took in $21.5 million.

"Jason Bourne," starring Matt Damon in the latest chapter of Universal`s enduring spy thriller, came in fourth, with $13.6 million.

And "Bad Moms," the bawdy comedy starring Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn as overworked and under-appreciated mothers who toss responsibility out the window, placed fifth, at $11.5 million.

Rounding out the top 10 films of the weekend were:

 

-- "The Secret Life of Pets" ($8.8 million)

 

-- "Star Trek: Beyond" ($6.8 million)

 

-- "Florence Foster Jenkins" ($6.6 million)

 

-- "Nine Lives" ($3.5 million)

 

-- "Lights Out" ($3.2 million)