NEW YORK, USA (AP) — The love-struck zombies of Warm Bodies swarmed the box office on Super Bowl weekend with a US$20 million opening.

On the weekend that Hollywood largely punts to football, the PG-13 film from Lionsgate's Summit Entertainment easily led the box office, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Super Bowl always means a significant slide in movie-going on Sunday -- studios predict a decrease of as much as 70 per cent from Saturday to Sunday -- but Warm Bodies still lured many teenage fans.

The film is about a zombie whose love for a human redeems him. Lionsgate, which also released the Twilight saga, is calling it a "rom-zom-com" for its mix of humour, romance and the supernatural. The film appealed particularly to females, who made up 60 per cent of the audience.

"They've definitely cracked the code on how to attract that teen audience with films like The Hunger Games, Twilight and something like Warm Bodies, which definitely plays right into the sweet spot of that demographic," says Hollywood.com box-office analyst Paul Dergabedian.