LEONARDO DiCaprio and Christopher Nolan’s Inception is anything but a sleeper as the thriller opened big with $60.4 million and a No 1 finish at the weekend box office, according to studio estimates yesterday.

The Warner Bros action tale about a team that sneaks into people’s dreams is DiCaprio’s biggest opening weekend, topping his previous best of $41.1 million for last winter’s Shutter Island.

Inception falls far short of director Christopher Nolan’s best, though. Nolan is the man who directed the Batman blockbuster The Dark Knight, which opened over the same weekend two years ago with a record $158.4 million.

Warner Bros has carved out a niche with this particular mid-July weekend. The studio followed The Dark Knight with a $77.8 million opening for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince over the same weekend last year.

Strong reviews helped Inception which stars DiCaprio as leader of a team that normally breaks into people’s dreams to steal their secrets but now has been hired to do the opposite — plant an idea in a wealthy heir’s subconscious.

Slipping to second place with $32.7 million was the previous weekend’s No. 1 movie, Steve Carell’s animated hit Despicable Me. The Universal release raised its 10-day total to $118.4 million.

Disney’s family adventure The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was a dud, opening at No 3 with $17.4 million, lifting its total to $24.5 million since premiering Wednesday.

The movie reunites the team behind the hit National Treasure movies — Nicolas Cage, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Jon Turteltaub — for an action comedy about an ancient wizard training an awkward apprentice (Jay Baruchel) to take down an evil sorceress in modern Manhattan.

Bruckheimer has been a blockbuster producer for Disney with such hits as The Rock, Armageddon and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

But The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was the summer’s second Disney-Bruckheimer production to come up short at the domestic box office, following Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which was unable to crack the $100 million mark.

With Inception and Despicable Me, the weekend marked a rare instance when two original stories — not sequels, spinoffs or adaptations of comic books, best-sellers or other properties — led the box office.

Hollywood relies on familiar titles such as Iron Man 2, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Toy Story 3 for most of its big summer releases, though the occasional fresh idea manages to score with audiences.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theatres, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released today.

1. Inception, $60.4 million.

2. Despicable Me, $32.7 million.

3. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, $17.4 million.

4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” $13.5 million.

5. Toy Story 3, $11.7 million.

6. Grown Ups, $10 million.

7. The Last Airbender, $7.5 million.

8. Predators, $6.8 million.

9. Knight and Day, $3.7 million.

10. The Karate Kid, $2.2 million.