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Director Martin Scorsese and his protege Leonardo DiCaprio beat out the weekend competition in the United States and Canada in the fright flick "Shutter Island," estimated figures showed Sunday.
The movie, the strongest opening for both Scorsese and DiCaprio, pulled in some 40.2 million dollars in its debut weekend, according to the tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.
Adapted from a book by Dennis Lehane, the movie is a police thriller with elements of fantasy and horror in which DiCaprio plays a US federal marshall investigating a disappearance at a psychiatric asylum in the 1950s.
The movie is the fourth collaboration between the Oscar-winning director and Di Caprio, following "The Departed," "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator."
"Shutter Island" easily bumped last week's favorite, the star-studded comedy "Valentine's Day," from its top spot.
The romantic ensemble starring Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Biel, Jennifer Garner and Jessica Alba amongst others scooped up 17.2 million dollars in its second week.
In third place, still raking in mountains of cash, was science-fiction epic "Avatar," the highest-grossing film of all time with more than two billion dollars worldwide. In its 10th week on North American release, Canadian James Cameron's film made 16.1 million dollars.
The Oscar-favored movie is followed by mythological adventure-fantasy picture "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," based on Rick Riordan's book and starring Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman. The movie earned 15.3 million dollars in its second week.
Fourth was "The Wolfman," a remake of the lycanthrope legend starring Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, took a 9.8-million-dollar bite at the box office, followed by the romantic tearjerker "Dear John," an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel, which pulled in 7.3 million dollars.
