Highly anticipated X-Men Origins: Wolverine kicked off the summer movie season with a howl by topping the box office over the weekend.
Taking in $87 million ($35 million on its opening day Friday), Hugh Jackman's new movie debuted in the No. 1 spot and became 20th Century Fox's best-ever non-holiday bow at the U.S. box office.
According to Hollywood.com box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian, this puts Wolverine solidly in line with the three previous X-Men movies in which Jackman costarred. It actually outdid the first two movies: X-Men had an opening day of $20.8 million, while X2: X-Men United did $31.2 million on its first day. The final chapter of that trilogy, X-Men: The Last Stand, was the most successful with $45.1 million on opening day.
"Audiences have a huge appetite for Hugh Jackman, for the character Wolverine, and the Wolverine that Hugh has created," Fox senior VP of distribution Chris Aronson said. "Almost half of the moviegoers polled said the film was better than expected."
