Now this is what gets a Hollywood executive excited.

The Sex and the City movie raked in more than $55 million this weekend, well above the studio's forecast of $25 million to $35 million. That number made the opening weekend the biggest-ever for a romantic comedy, bumping Hitch, which raked in $43 million when it opened in 2005, to second place. S.A.T.C. has also become the biggest-ever opening for an R-rated movie.

In addition, Sex seduced the weekend's top-grossing spot from the new Indiana Jones flick, which industry analysts had forecast to remain No. 1 in its second weekend in theaters. And the movie made good overseas as well, earning $40 million in its opening weekend.

With a reported budget of $60 million (not counting marketing), that means the pink-hued flick is well into the black. And even if there is a significant drop-off in viewers over the next few weeks, which might be expected since opening-weekend turnout was so strong, Warner Bros. isn't likely to lose sleep over it. With additional ticket sales trickling in, both domestic and worldwide, and plenty of gravy in the form of ancillary markets like DVD and per-per-view sales, the movie will keep W.B. execs in Manolos and cosmos—or Gucci brogues and Montecristos, whatever the case may be.

"They should make one of these every year," says Jeff Bock, who analyzes box-office sales for Exhibitor Relations, a Los Angeles-based entertainment-research firm. Bock notes the rarity of a movie hauling in such huge numbers of women—according to a press release from Warner Bros., 85 percent of viewers this weekend were female—and likens the film to Titanic, another monstrously profitable film that female moviegoers made into "event" viewing, and whose success took the industry by surprise.

So should audiences expect a slew of female-friendly films, now that women have proved they can make money for chick flicks? The Katherine Heigl vehicle 27 Dresses—which has grossed over $155 million worldwide to date—Ellen Page's Juno, and Miley Cyrus' Hannah Montana are all recent examples of high-profile, female-oriented movies that made money for studios. But Bock doubts a flood of female movies will materialize, saying Hollywood's "male-oriented" mentality—in which action flicks dominate—is unlikely to change.

Instead, the happiest ending of all may be for HBO, which "has to be licking its chops right now," says Bock. He predicts that a rumored Sopranos movie, based on the popular HBO series, will now be fast-tracked in production. And if that's true, viewers might soon see an Entourage movie, or even one based on The Wire.

After all, if you can make this money in the movies, why waste time on the small screen?