娱乐英语新闻:"Real Steel" opens as No. 1 at North America box office, beating George Cloony starrer

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- A robot boxer landed a decisive blow to its human opponent in the box office duel, as "Real Steel" beats out George Clooney starrer "Ides of March" as top earner at the North America box office, according to preliminary statistics released by distributors.

The DreamWorks' robot-boxing movie opened at 3,440 locations in the United States and Canada, grossing 27.3 million U.S. dollars over the Friday-Sunday period, a showing which is basically in line with most pre-release expectations, Walt Disney Pictures said.

The actioner, which stars Hugh Jackman in the lead role who trains a bunch of robots to box for a living, started to build a good word of mouth from moviegoers. Those who saw the movie gave it an average grade of A, according to audience review aggregator CinemaScore.

However, the flick, which is based on a 1956 short story "Steel, " faces an uphill journey as it has cost DreamWorks SKG some 110 million dollars to make.

"Ides of March," a political thriller released by Sony, opened as No. 2 with 10.4 million dollars from 2,199 theater. It is an unspectacular showing for Clooney, who directed, produced and scripted the flick. The actor also played a newbie presidential candidate who get a crash course, from one of his staffer, on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail.

The movie is based on an off-Broadway play, "Farragut North," by Beau Willimon. The film is seen mostly by older moviegoers, with as many as 60 percent of them over 35 years of age. Those who watched the film gave it an average grade of B, a not so spectacular showing. The film costs 12.5 million dollars to make.

"Dolphin Tale," in its third week of screening, is having a 9.2 million-dollar weekend and is on track for a 49 million-dollar run.

Rounding out the 10 most-popular movies in North America this weekend are "Moneyball" (7.5 million dollars), "50/50" (5.5 million dollars), "Courageous" (4.6 million dollars), "The Lion King" (4.6 million dollars), "Dream House" (4.5 million dollars), "What's Your Number?" (3 million dollars), and "Abduction" (2.9 million dollars).