Jason Statham's The Meg scores $44 million opening weekend at North American box office

The North American box office was under attack from sci-fi horror film The Meg this weekend, industry estimates showed on 12 August, as it more than doubled the earnings of its closest competitor to claim the top spot. [caption id=“attachment_4938691” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] A still from The Meg/Image from YouTube.[/caption] The Warner Bros adaptation of Steve Alten’s Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (1997) took $44.5 million in its first weekend in theaters, as viewers rushed to see Jason Statham as a rescue diver who tries to save scientists in a nuclear submarine from a huge, underwater shark attack. Second place went to Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible - Fallout from Paramount, with $20 million earnings ending a two-week run at the top, according to industry tracker Exhibitor Relations. Fallout, the sixth stunt-filled edition in the popular M:I franchise, sees Cruise again do his own vertigo-inducing, cliff-hanging, exploding-car stunts and has raked in $162 million during three weeks in cinemas. In at third was Disney’s live-animated hybrid Christopher Robin — which tells the story of Winnie the Pooh’s now grown-up and stressed-out friend and how he reunites with his old stuffed friend — with ticket sales of $12.4 million. Meanwhile, despite a poor reception from critics, Sony’s newly released Slender Man took fourth place with $11.4 million. The supernatural horror story follows a group of friends who, enthralled by online stories about the mysterious Slender Man, try to prove he doesn’t really exist — only for one of them to go missing. Fifth went to Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which took $10.8 million. Starring John David Washington — son of Denzel Washington — it tells the true story of black detective Ron Stallworth, who in 1970s Colorado set out to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan chapter.