娱乐英语新闻:"G.I. Joe 2" storms North America box office as 2nd best Easter weekend debut

LOS ANGELES, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The Easter Weekend in North America saw a trio of new films hitting the cinemas, with the latest installment on the "G.I. Joe" franchise leading the way as the No. 1 grosser for the weekend and the second largest all-time Easter debut.

"G.I. Joe: Retaliation," the much-delayed Paramount actioner which has been shown in 3,719 cinemas in the United States and Canada, is projected to roll up 41.2 million U.S. dollars in ticket sales, claiming the second largest all-time Easter debut trailing the 61.24-million-dollar start of 2010's 3-D action film "Clash of the Titans."

The follow-up to 2009 hit "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," which is based on Hasbro's popular action figure series, was helmed by Jon Chu and stars Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson and Bruce Willis as special-ops soldiers. Its widely-expected release was put off from last June until Friday so as to retool it to 3-D and to give more screen time to Channing Tatum.

The 3-D sequel is a man-skewing movie, as 68 percent of the audiences was male, and 59 percent aged 25 years and older. Those who have seen it gave it an "A-" CinemaScore, which is much better than the original's "B+," serving as a good sign for its performance in the weeks to come.

This weekend's No. 2 spot went to "The Croods," the first DreamWorks Animation computer animated film to be distributed by Fox, which is on track to gross 26.5 million dollars in ticket receipts. It is on track to rake in 88.62 million dollars during 10 days of exhibition.

"Tyler Perry's Temptation" opened in No. 3 with 22.3 million dollars. The Lionsgate release, which is produced, written and directed by Tyler Perry, was based on one of Perry's pre-existing plays. Audiences gave it an "A-" CinemaScore rating. Like the majority of Perry's films, this is also a female-skewing film which attracted 70 percent female moviegoers. Seventy-nine percent of those who have seen the drama aged 25 years and older.

Rounding out the 10 most popular films in North America this weekend were "Olympus Has Fallen" (14 million dollars), "Oz: The Great And Powerful" (11.6 million)," "The Host" (debuting at 11 million), "The Call" (4.8 million), "Admission" (3.3 million), " Spring Breakers" (2.8 million), and "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" (1.3 million).