Sci-fi thriller takes top spot in US box office

Jodie Foster teams up with Matt Damon in the science fiction thriller Science-fiction thriller \"Elysium\" took top spot in the North American box-office this weekend, beating out competition from raunchy Jennifer Aniston comedy \"We\'re The Millers,\" estimates showed Sunday.
Starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, \"Elysium\" is set in a dystopian future where the poor have been left to inhabit a ruined Earth while the rich live on a luxurious space station.
The movie, written and directed by South African filmmaker Neil Blomkamp (\"District 9\"), earned 30.5 million US dollars, in its opening three days, estimated figures from box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations showed.
In second place was Aniston\'s R-rated comedy \"We\'re The Millers,\" which stars the former \"Friends\" actress and Jason Sudeikis in a romp about a bogus family attempting to smuggle drugs into the United States from Mexico.
The film took $26.6 m over the three-day weekend, placing it just ahead of Disney\'s latest animated offering \"Planes.\"
An effective spin-off of the hugely successful \"Cars\" franchise, \"Planes\" took $22.5 m to place third.
Fourth place was occupied by another debutant, \"Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters\", the latest adaptation based on the book series by Rick Riordan about a schoolboy who is in fact the son of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon. The film took $14.6 m.
Last week\'s number one, the Denzel Washington-Mark Wahlberg action comedy \"2 Guns\" earned $11.1 m this weekend.
Sony\'s animated sequel \"The Smurfs 2\" was in sixth spot with $9.5 m, just ahead of Hugh Jackman\'s comic-book based blockbuster \"The Wolverine. The latest big-screen adaptation to feature the claw-fingered \"X-Men\" character added another $8 m in its third week on release.
In eighth place was horror film \"The Conjuring\", the low-budget shocker which took $6.7 m. So far the movie has earned $120.7 m in four weeks, a phenomenal return for a film which cost a relatively modest $20 m to make.
Animated children\'s comedy \"Despicable Me 2\" was ninth with $7.4 m, as another sequel \"Grown Ups 2\" took 10th.
Rounding out the top 12 were Woody Allen\'s acclaimed drama \"Blue Jasmine\", with $2.5 m and animated children\'s flick \"Turbo\" with $2.3 m.




Source: AFP