‘Men in Black 3’ tops weekend box office with 55m dollars debut

New York: Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones’ sequel ‘Men in Black 3’ has knocked off ‘Avengers’ to top the U.S box office, earning 55 million dollars during Memorial Day weekend.

Distributor Sony estimates that by the end of the four-day holiday weekend Monday, the film will have pulled in 70 million dollars domestically and 202 million dollars worldwide, the New York Post reported. Disney’s ‘The Avengers’ has come to the second-place after three blockbuster weekends on top for the superhero sensation. Universal’s ‘Battleship’ was No. 3 in its second weekend with 10.8 million dollars, raising its domestic earnings to 44.3 million dollars. Paramount’s comedy ‘The Dictator’ took in 9.6 million dollars to finish fourth in its second weekend and lift its total to 41.5 million dollars. Raking in 8million dollars, the Warner Bros. horror tale ‘Chernobyl Diaries’ opened at No. 5. ‘Men in Black 3’ reunites Smith’s Agent J and Jones’ Agent K as they battle a new alien menace that travels four decades back in time to do away with the younger Agent K (Josh Brolin). ‘The Avengers’ and now ‘Men in Black 3’ have been the only notable successes for the summer season so far, with big releases such as ‘Dark Shadows’ and ‘Battleship’ fizzling on the domestic front. “We really need to get going if we don’t want to have play catch-up every weekend through the summer. Some of these summer movies are just not doing the business people had hoped for in North America,” said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. ANI