BOX OFFICE REPORT: THINK LIKE A MAN TOO STRONG FOR HOLDOVERS

It was men vs. boys at theatres in North America at the weekend, though the real winner was the sequel brigade. All three top earners were follow-ups to comedy hits, and the battle for No. 1 was a closely-fought race between last weekend's first place, 22 Jump Street, and victor Think Like a Man Too. Grosses were nevertheless way down on the same weekend in 2013, when the Top 3 alone accounted for over $50 million more than this weekend's entire revenue.

1) Think Like a Man Too ($29,241,911)

Unlike 22 Jump Street, Think Like a Man Too was unable to claim an opening weekend victory over its predecessor, and that's probably the fault of Jump Street, which came a close second. Comedy sequels tend to need to notch up very large improvements to close higher in the end (The Hangover Part II being a classic example), so Sony ScreenGems will likely be underwhelmed by this performance. It's already made back its budget, though, so it's still a win for the studio.

2) 22 Jump Street ($27,460,995)

3) How to Train Your Dragon 2 ($24,719,312)

4) Jersey Boys (13,319,371)

No-one realistically expected Jersey Boys to open much higher than this. The lightly-marketed musical adaptation features no marquee names, and is being sold to an older audience, unlikely to turn out in massive numbers on opening weekend. So this ought to hold decently over the coming weeks. The film was shown in more screens than any other Clint Eastwood film on opening weekend; it's on track to become his eighth highest grosser as director.

5) Maleficent ($12,910,766)

6) Edge of Tomorrow ($9,820,080)

7) The Fault in Our Stars ($8,565,710)

8) X-Men: Days of Future Past ($6,150,460)

9) Godzilla ($1,888,304)

10) Chef ($1,708,590)

Other new openers:

39) Third Person ($38,856)

With this tepid opening, you'd barely know that this was a film from the director of a recent Oscar Best Picture winning film, starring Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis and James Franco. Another nail in Paul Haggis' career's coffin. That's comeuppance.

45) Venus in Fur ($24,761)

Roman Polanski's film arrives in American theatres over a year after impressing audiences at Cannes 2013. A bit of a shame that it can't even muster up a per-theatre-average higher than the new Kevin Hart film, in just two theatres.

52) Coherence ($17,000)

57) A Summer's Tale (12,863)

59) Le Chef ($11,290)

63) The Last Sentence ($9,020)

This is a Jan Troell film starring Jesper Christensen. It would've been my pick of the new releases to catch this weekend (perhaps save Venus in Fur, though I've already seen that). Oh well.

74) Code Black ($6,319)

75) A Picture of You ($5650)