Box office: ‘Tammy’ rolls out with $1.3 million Tuesday night

Melissa McCarthy’s new R-rated road-trip comedy “Tammy” started its engines with a robust $1.3 million in ticket sales from Tuesday night pre-shows, according to an estimate from the film’s distributor Warner Bros. Pictures.

That result tops the $1 million in sales from Thursday night preview showings of McCarthy’s 2013 hit, “The Heat,” a buddy cop comedy co-starring Sandra Bullock that opened to $39 million in its first weekend in U.S. release.

“Tammy” is making its domestic debut over the Fourth of July holiday period and is expected to generate around $45 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada through Sunday, according to people who saw pre-release audience surveys going into the long weekend.

That would make for another likely success for the comic actress.

“Tammy” is not expected to top “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” which should continue to post big numbers after opening to $100 million domestically last weekend. The worldwide haul so far for the fourth “Transformers” film has well surpassed the $300-million mark.

In “Tammy,” McCarthy returns to her outrageous persona as the title character. With her life in shambles, Tammy embarks on a journey with her hard-drinking grandmother, played by Susan Sarandon.

The Tuesday night numbers come in behind last year’s hit Warner Bros. comedy “We’re the Millers.” That movie took in $1.6 million on a Tuesday in August. Counting its opening Wednesday and Thursday, “We’re the Millers” grossed just shy of $38 million in its first weekend, on its way to $150 million domestically.

Other movies hoping for box-office cash are Relativity Media’s alien family offering “Earth to Echo” and Screen Gems’ horror-crime flick “Deliver Us From Evil.”

Follow Ryan Faughnder on Twitter: @rfaughnder