Having Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio indulge their B-Movie sides looks like a smart move in the case of Shutter Island, as the thriller has opened to $40.2 million across the pond, a record launch for both the director and his current muse.
A delay of a few months – so Paramount could root behind the sofa to make sure it had the money to market the thing – has paid off handsomely and, with little wide-scale competition, the film shoved **Valentine’s Day **off the top spot, pushing the romantic comedy to second place and $17.1 million. Avatar surged back, however, climbing one place to third and earned $16.1 million, despite being 10 weeks into its release.
Fourth place was Percy Jackson And The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, with the adventure film nabbing $15.3 million, and rounding out the top five was The Wolfman, which lost a lot of its bite and made $9.8 million.
The rest of the chart was largely similar to last week, featuring the likes of Dear John, Crazy Heart, The Tooth Fairy, From Paris With Love and** Edge Of Darkness**.
Outside the top 10, Roman Polanski’s new film **The Ghost Writer **opened well – despite launching in just four cinemas (with a wider rollout planned for next week), it made $179,000.