LOS ANGELES, USA - 'Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs' grossed a cool US$13.8 million in North American theaters on Wednesday, marking Hollywood's biggest mid-week opening for an animated film.

The previous record Wednesday opening in the United States and Canada for a cartoon feature was 'Shrek 2,' which sold US$11.8 million its first day in May 2004, according to the film tracking service Hollywood.com Box-Office.

The third installment of 'Ice Age,' the hit film franchise starring a computer-animated cast of prehistoric critters, also bested the blockbuster 'Transformers' sequel, which sold US$11.2 million on Wednesday, its eighth day in release.

'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,' which opened last week at the top of the box office, has now amassed domestic ticket sales of about US$240 million.

Box office analysts say 'Transformers 2' has a chance of holding on to the No. 1 spot for the U.S. July 4th holiday weekend as a whole, but the 3-D movie 'Ice Age' is considered the front-runner for first place.

A third-place finish is likely to go to the period gangster drama 'Public Enemies,' starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, which opened Wednesday with US$8.2 million in U.S.-Canadian ticket sales.

'Ice Age' is distributed by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp. 'Transformers' was released by Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures. 'Public Enemies' is a release of Universal Pictures, controlled by General Electric .