A film which boasts juvenile humour and no real plot has topped the box office in the US and Canada.

Jackass: The Movie is the big screen outing from Johnny Knoxville and his team who perform outrageous and dangerous stunts, usually to an unsuspecting public audience.

The comedy, based on the MTV series, took an estimated $22.7m (�14.6m) in its opening weekend, according to box office tracker Exhibition Relations.

Top five

1. Jackass: The Movie 2. The Ring 3. Ghost Ship 4. Sweet Home Alabama 5. My Big Fat Greek Wedding Source: Exhibitor Relations

The low-brow comedy knocked horror film The Ring into second place, which took $18.8m (�12.1m) in its second weekend.

Jackass: The Movie sees the cast involve themselves in stomach-churning antics such as travelling down a hill in a shopping cart, being pelted with rubbish and teasing alligators and sharks with raw meat.

Exhibitor Relations reports that half the audience for the adult movie were males aged between 17 and 24, and two-thirds of the audience were men.

Holding on

Ghost Ship, another fright flick released in time for Halloween, entered at number three.

The movie, which stars Gabriel Byrne and Julianna Margulies, depicts the crew of a salvage ship stumbling across a seemingly lifeless passenger ship lost in 1953.

Former chart-topping romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama, starring Reese Witherspoon, has fallen from the second spot down to number to five, with weekend takings of $6.4m (�4.1m).

Still snapping at the heels of the new movies is My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which despite being released in April is still at number five in the North American chart.

The Adam Sandler comedy Punch-Drunk Love rose eight places to number seven, although it is still playing in a relatively low number of cinemas.

Sony said the movie, which has taken to $6.1m (�3.9m) to date, will open on more than 1,000 screens in the coming week.