Well, The Voyage Home has been a long one, but the weekend’s First Contact with the JJ Abrams-directed Star Trek reboot showed much promise for the new (old?) franchise. The film pulled in an estimated $76.5M over its extended three-and-a-half-day debut. This does, admittedly, put it behind last May’s Iron Man, which took $22 million more.

This is undoubtedly good news for Paramount as the film is the first Trek in years to play beyond its Final Frontier of core Trekkies to new Generations. The previous biggest opening for a Trek movie was First Contact in 1996 with $30m ($50m adjusted for ticket inflation), while this film represents Abrams’ biggest opener as a director (Mission: Impossible III scored $47m).

It seems that The Search For Storyline has paid off, as Trek looks to be the biggest opening for any franchise reboot ever. Casino Royale and Batman Begins pulled in $40 and $48 million respectively.

Second place at the box office went to Wolverine with $27m – a big drop of 68%. Third went to Ghosts of Girlfriends Past ($10.5m, dropping only 32%), fourth to Obsessed ($6.6m), and fifth to 17 Again ($4.4m). Next Day Air opened sixth with a measly $4m. Must try harder.

Source: Variety