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.

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 US$43.8 million in sales on North American screens over the three-day weekend.

That was down sharply from its opening weekend take of US$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 US$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 US$21.5 million.

"Jason Bourne," starring Matt Damon in the latest chapter of Universal's enduring spy thriller, came in fourth, with US$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 US$11.5 million.

Rounding out the top 10 films of the weekend were:

– "The Secret Life of Pets" (US$8.8 million)

– "Star Trek: Beyond" (US$6.8 million)

– "Florence Foster Jenkins" (US$6.6 million)

– "Nine Lives" (US$3.5 million)

– "Lights Out" (US$3.2 million)