With a strong $150 million worldwide gross in just three days, the futuristic sci-fi adventure, X2: X-Men United, has already recovered its $110 million cost. Very few movies achieve that kind of success.
Directed by Bryan Singer, it stormed worldwide theatres in the biggest launch in movie history and is now showing in about 8,000 screens in more than 60 countries and some 30 territories.
Bend It Like Beckham, the romantic comedy directed by Gurinder Chadha, shot into the Top 10 list for the first time since its release eight weeks ago, taking its gross to $11 million. Playing in just 484 theatres, Beckham could have a profitable run through the hectic summer months. It jumped from number 14 last week to number 9 this week, though its gross, at $1.45 million, was a few thousand dollars less than its gross the previous week.
At least $85 million of X2's gross is estimated to have come from the United States and Canada. Its three-day gross is half of what the first movie, X-Men, also directed by Singer, made in its entire 12-week run three years ago. Though it will soon face stiff competition from Matrix Reloaded, it has enough appeal to be a phenomenal hit.
Based on the popular Marvel comic books about a group of mutants who have to fight for their survival, X2 was released by Twentieth Century Fox, the studio behind the highly popular Star Wars movies.
The film, which details the successful fight its mutant characters put up to defend themselves against humans, and a nasty general in particular, stars Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Halle Berry.
'We all are mutants,' Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad, one of the film's producers, told Reuters. 'And in every place and every situation, there's someone who thinks they're better than us.'
The top 10 contained one other new release, Disney's The Lizzie McGuire Movie. Aimed at teenagers, it opened at No 2 with 17 million. The low budget romantic film, which cost $ 25 million, stars television actress Hilary Duff as an awkward teenager who is transformed into a plucky heroine while on an Italian sojourn.
The movie, which could easily earn $50 million, follows the similarly themed What a Girl Wants, starring another teen icon, Amanda Bynes. What a Girl Wants had a profitable $40 million run in America.
Disney also had Holes, another movie with considerable teen appeal, at number 5. Holes grossed $6.5 million; its three-week total reached $45 million.
Sony saw its fine suspense hit, Identity, at third position on the Top 10 chart, with a $9.5 million weekend gross and $30 million in 10 days. Another hit, Anger Management, which grossed $8.5 million for a four-week $115 million total, was at number four.
