LOS ANGELES, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- The 20th Century Fox's space film "The Martian" opened to a stellar response from movie customers, and topped North American box office this weekend.
The movie was on track to sell 55 million U.S. dollars in tickets in the United States and Canada this weekend, according to studio estimates gathered by industry analysts at Rentrak.
For "The Martian" star Matt Damon, this was his second largest opening ever behind "The Bourne Ultimatum" (69.2 million dollars) and ahead of "The Bourne Supremacy" (52.5 million dollars).
The movie opened just 1 percent below the 55.79 million dollars debut of October record holder "Gravity" back in 2013. The comparison was especially impressive given that "The Martian" did not have the advantage of higher priced IMAX admissions that "Gravity" had. It also opened 16 percent ahead of the 47.51 million dollars debut of last year's space film "Interstellar."
"The Martian" received a strong "A" rating from first-night moviegoers on CinemaScore, which suggested that the film would hold up very well throughout the rest weeks of October. Critics gave it as high as 94 percent of approval rating on RottenTomatoes.
In its second weekend of showings, Sony's "Hotel Transylvania 2" ranked second with 33 million dollars in estimated receipts. The Adam Sandler led 3D computer animated film from Sony Pictures Animation held up very nicely this weekend, as it was down just 32 percent from last weekend's revenue. Its running total was 90.5 million dollars in 10 days.
Adding an additional 2,561 theaters this weekend, Lionsgate's "Sicario" came to the third place with 12 million dollars in weekend sales. Sicario received a healthy "A-" rating on CinemaScore and 93 percent positive rating from critics on RottenTomatoes.
Rounding out the 10 most-popular movies in the U.S. and Canada were "The Intern" (11.6 million dollars), "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials" (7.7 million), "Black Mass" (5.9 million), "Everest" (5.5 million), "The Visit" (3.9 million), "War Room" (2.8 million) and "The Perfect Guy" (2.4 million).