“Star Trek” debut to dominate North American weekend box office

That would be a marked decline on the US$228.7 million take for Into Darkness and an even bigger drop on 2009’s Star Trek, which delivered US$257.7 million.

However, the real victor was horror film Lights Out, which cost Warner Bros £3.8 million to make and landed in third place with £16.6 million out of the gate, studios said on Monday. 37% of the audience was under the age of 18, while females made up 54% of all ticket buyers. But making matters more dire: “Star Trek Beyond”, which was distributed by Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures, had a costly budget of about $185 million. It opened in 46% of the marketplace at the weekend, grossing $30-M from 37 markets for a global bow of $89.6-M.

It’s a winning weekend for “Star Trek Beyond” with a $59.6 million finish. Tarzan has now grossed $260.5-M. Into Darkness earned $239-M overseas.

To be sure, this weekend’s foreign opening represented only 45% of the new film’s worldwide footprint, and Paramount still has openings in France, Spain, China and Japan to look forward to. Considering that the second film (‘The Meltdown”) had the series’ highest opening ($68 million) and each of the other three debuts in the $40 million range, it comes as a massive blow that “Collision Course’ opened in the #5 spot to just $21 million. The makers of the film are happy as per the film give them more and better than their expectations. The fact that this series continues to see diminishing returns at the domestic box office has to be worrisome to Paramount, especially considering that the franchise runs an increasing risk of being overshadowed by Disney’s Star Wars. ‘Finding Dory, ‘ $7.2 mn ($19.5 international); 6. The reboot has now earned $86.9-M domestically. It pulled $178.9 million overseas, which is exactly what Fox needs to make the $105 million picture a box office success.

The documentary ‘Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party, ‘ from conservative political pundit Dinesh D’Souza, edged into the top 10 in its second week with $3.7 mn.

British film Absolutely Fabulous has gone into the charts at number 14 after opening last week. “Pets”, which racked up an impressive $104.4 million in its debut weekend, took in $29.6 million.

Have some fun, see a movie this week.