Spider-Man 2 leaps to the top of the North American box office

Cinema still: The Amazing Spider-man 2. -- FILE PHOTO: SONY PICTURES
Cinema still: The Amazing Spider-man 2. -- FILE PHOTO: SONY PICTURES

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" sprang to the top of the North American box office on its debut weekend in theaters, industry figures showed Monday.

The sequel featuring Andrew Garfield in the famous red and blue tights earned US$91.6 million (S114.5 million), outperforming the original which took US$62 million on its 2012 opening weekend and went on to gross US$262 million.

Falling to number two, romantic comedy "The Other Woman" starring Cameron Diaz earned US$14.4 million in its second week in theaters, according to box officer trackers Exhibitor Relations.

"Heaven Is For Real," starring Greg Kinnear as the father of a four-year-old boy who wakes up from emergency surgery with a story about going to heaven and back, held on to third place with US$8.6 million in receipts.

"Captain America: The Winter Soldier," based on the iconic Marvel superhero and starring Chris Evans, dropped to fourth from last week's second place finish. It pulled in US$7.8 million.

Animated flick "Rio 2" about a family of blue Macaw parrots with voices by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway slipped a notch to fifth with a gross of US$7.7 million.

Just behind it in sixth, grossing a whisker under US$3.7 million in its second week, was "Brick Mansions," a futuristic crime drama starring the late actor Paul Walker, who was killed in a high speed crash last November.

"Divergent," based on the popular young adult novel of the same name, took in US$2.2 million, enough to lift into seventh place from ninth last week. Over seven weeks, it has grossed US$142.7 million.

Eighth place went to "The Quiet Ones," the British horror film starring Jared Harris - son of late acting legend Richard Harris - which earned US$2.0 million.

"The Grand Budapest Hotel," US director Wes Anderson's latest with an all-star cast including Ralph Fiennes, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum and Harvey Keitel, came in ninth with US$1.78 million.

Rounding out the top 10 was "God's Not Dead," in which a student tries to prove God's existence. It earned US$1.77 million in its seventh week on release in North America.

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