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Thanks to its vigorous pre-debut promotion and movie-goers' innate desire to associate themselves with horror scenes, R-rated 3-D supernatural thriller "The Final Destination 4" has broken the ticket sales record since the first installment of the series debuted in 2000 with 10 million dollars -- the second in 2003 with16 million dollars and the third in 2006 with 19.2 million dollars.
The film, released on Friday in America and Canada, written by Eric Bress and directed by David R. Ellis, the pair who also worked for the second installment, tells how the hero used his horrific premonition to help his friends cheat the doom. They seemingly cheated death, but eventually died in horrific accidents. Witnessing his friends die one by one in grotesque ways, he must figure out how to cheat death once and for all before he, too, reaches his final destination. The film is the first of the franchise that was shot in High-Definition 3-D format.
Although the movie was accepted with generally negative to negative-mediocre reviews by critics, it drew a wide spectrum of audiences. And 3-D showing accounted for 70 percent of the weekend income total.
Last week's number one, Quentin Tarantino-directed "Inglourious Basterds" featuring Hollywood's headliner Brad Pill, fetched 20 million dollars for a second place, or a 47 percent drop from the previous weekend sales. However, the film has harvested some 75 million dollars after two weeks' showing.
Number three finish was also reserved for a horror thriller, "Halloween II," another Weinstein Co. production. It has sold for 17.4 million dollars across North America. The Rob Zombie-directed sequel is the second installment of the Zombie re-imaginings of the franchise, the original of which opened way back in 1978 and was directed by horror legend John Carpenter.
Sony's alien-action saga "District 9" ranked fourth with 10.7 million dollars over the weekend, and is well positioned to surpass the 100 millions dollars mark.
The fifth belongs to Paramount's live-action big-budget film "G.I. Joe" with a fourth weekend battle chest of 8 million dollars and a domestic cumulative approaching 135 million dollars.