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Hellboy 2 tops the US box office

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, the sequel to the 2004 movie adapted from the Dark Horse Comics character, topped the US box office this weekend with an estimated gross of $35.9M.

Directed by Guillermo de Toro (fresh from the success of Pan’s Labyrinth), it sees Ron Perlman reprise his role as the demon who fights for good, this time against an army of creatures unleashed from another world.

On Friday it took an estimated $12.75 million, which set it up nicely to overtake Hancock, last week’s Number 1 film.

Interestingly, Universal bought the rights to make this sequel from Sony and Revolution Studios who passed on it after the original grossed just under $60m in the US on a $66m budget.

Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily reports:

The fact that Hellboy II made 50% more than the 2004 first movie’s $23.1M opening FSS is a real triumph for Universal Pictures, whose bosses Marc Shmuger, David Linde and Donna Langley swooped in and scooped up the sequel from Sony/Revolution Studios which did the original Hellboy I. (And the trio wanted it before del Toro’s Oscar-nominated Pan’s Labyrinth ever opened.)

As one Uni exec exulted, “We took somebody’s reject pile and made it into a franchise for us.”

Hancock held steady in second place with a 50% drop from last weekend, which is impressive given last week’s longer 5-day weekend and the mixed reviews it received.

As for the other new films this week, Journey to the Center of the Earth looks like it will nab third spot ahead of WALL•E, whilst the new Eddie Murphy comedy Meet Dave didn’t fare so well.

It looks like it will gross about $4.1 million over the weekend, which will be his weakest opening in years.

Here are the latest estimates for the weekend box office from Variety:

  1. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Universal) / $35.9m / Screens: 3,204
  2. Hancock (Sony) / $33.0m / Screens: 3,965
  3. Journey to the Center of the Earth (Warner Bros./New Line) / $20.6m / Screens: 2,811
  4. WALL-E (Disney/Pixar) / $18.5 / Screens: 3,849
  5. Wanted (Universal) / $11.6m / Screens: 3,157
  6. Get Smart (Warner Bros.) / $11.1m / Screens: 3,086
  7. Meet Dave (Fox/New Regency) / $5.3 / Screens: 3,011
  8. Kung Fu Panda (Paramount/DreamWorks) / $4.3m / Screens: 2,704
  9. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (Picturehouse) / $2.3 / Screens: 1,849
  10. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount) / $2.2 / Screens: 1,664

> Hellboy 2 at the IMDb
> Reuters report on the US box office this weekend
> Box Office Mojo with the latest chart