Superheroes ruled the Box Office over the weekend. The long awaited movie version of “Watchmen” debuted Friday and has been packing the theaters. So it’s no surprise the doomsday thriller killed the competition and racked up an estimated $55 million to become the number one film in the country. No doubt, a sequel is in the works. “Watchmen” is based on a popular comic book series first released in the mid-1980s.
Despite that huge money haul, “Watchmen” fell short of the record for a March opening weekend. The record holder is the film “300,” which earned $70 million on the same weekend in 2007. “Watchmen” will have to settle for third place behind the $68 million earned by “Ice Age: The Meltdown” in 2006.
Meanwhile, “Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail” got bumped to second place with $8.8 million after two weeks at number one. In third, the thriller “Taken” with around $7.4 million, followed by Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire” with $6.9 million for fourth and rounding out the top five, the comedy “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” with an estimated $4.2 million.