Kale Brecht (Shia LaBeouf, left) is led away from police activity by his mom, Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss), who struggles to care for him after his father's death. - Contributed

LOS ANGELES (Reuters)

Spying on the neighbours paid off handsomely at the North American box office for Shia LaBeouf, the former Disney child star being groomed by Steven Spielberg as the next big thing.

LaBeouf, 20, is the star of Disturbia, a low-budget version of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window for teens, which opened at number one with three-day ticket sales of $23 million, distributor Paramount Pictures said yesterday. It's about a teen who becomes convinced his neighbour is a serial killer.

After two weeks at number one, the Will Ferrell comedy Blades of Glory slipped to number two with $14.1 million over the weekend and a total haul of $90.2 million.

Both films were produced for Paramount by DreamWorks, the studio co-founded by Spielberg.

The filmmaker plucked LaBeouf from relative obscurity, he made a name for himself in the Disney Channel TV series Even Stevens, by casting him in Disturbia, DreamWorks' upcoming action movie Transformers and as Harrison Ford's son in the fourth Indiana Jones film, which Spielberg will direct in the summer.

Two other films opened in the top 10 with disappointing results: the Halle Berry-Bruce Willis thriller Perfect Stranger at number four with $11.5 million and the period action adventure Pathfinder at number six with $4.8 million. Paramount and DreamWorks are units of Viacom Inc.

Perfect Stranger was released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp. Pathfinder was released by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.

Following are the top 10 movies at the North American box office for the three-day weekend beginning April 13, led by Disturbia, according to studio estimates released yesterday.

Final data will be issued today.

1 () Disturbia ........................US$ 23.0 million

2 (1) Blades of Glory ............US$ 14.1 million

3 (2) Meet the Robinsons .....US$ 12.1 million

4 () Perfect Stranger ............US$ 11.5 million

5 (3) Are We Done Yet? ........US$ 9.2 million

6 () Pathfinder ......................US$ 4.8 million

7 (7) Wild Hogs ......................US$ 4.6 million

8 (5) The Reaping ..................US$ 4.6 million

9 (6) 300 ................................. US$ 4.3 million

10 (4) Grindhouse ..................US$ 4.2 million

NOTE: Last weekend's position in parenthesis. (new release).