Tom Cruise returned to lead the box office with the debut of his newest film Oblivion, a sci-fi adventure. The film’s debut helped the veteran actor reaffirm his star power with a weekend take of $38.2 million, which was easily the highest earning film of the weekend.
The film cost over $120 million and opened with a very solid weekend. The start was also positive for Cruise, who has not been successful recently at the cinema with underperforming movies such as Rock of Ages, Knight and Day, Valkyrie and Jack Reacher.
In Cruise’s career, only four other movies he has starred in debuted better than Oblivion. Three of the four that performed better were his Mission Impossible movies and the fourth was War of the Worlds. This is Cruise’s first movie to debut at No. 1 at the box office in seven years. Actors Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurlyenko joined him in the movie.
Second place at the box office went to 42, the inspiring movie about Jackie Robinson becoming the first black to play professional baseball. The movie earned $18 million in its second weekend giving it $54 million for only 10 days of release.
In third place was The Croods, which has earned $155 million in five weeks, after earning $9.5 million this past weekend. In fourth place was Scary Movie 5, which earned $6.3 million, and the top five was rounded out by G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which took in over $5.8 million and has earned in all over $322 million.
