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New Resident Evil tops box office

Los Angeles - Resident Evil: Afterlife, the fourth film in a zombie franchise starring Milla Jovovich, easily topped the weekend box office in North America on Sunday, earning more than the next six films combined as overall sales hit their lowest level in two years.

The new champ, the only major new release during the traditionally slow weekend following the US Labour Day holiday, sold $27.7m worth of tickets across the US and Canada, a record for the series.

The old mark was held by its predecessor, Resident Evil: Extinction, which opened at $23.7m in September 2007 and finished with $51m. Its final tally was in line with that of 2004's Resident Evil: Apocalypse and bigger than the $40m haul of 2002's Resident Evil.

Resident Evil: Afterlife was released in 3D, which boosted its sales by about $1m, according to rough industry estimates.

Internationally, the film earned $45.5m from 29 markets, led by No 1 openings in Japan ($15.5m) and Russia ($9.5m).

The films were released by Screen Gems, the mid-budget arm of Sony Corp, which collaborated on the development with German producer Constantin Film.

Screen Gems also claimed the No 2 movie in North America as the heist thriller Takers earned $6.1m, rising one place; its total stands at $48.1m after three weekends.

Last weekend's top film, Focus Features' George Clooney assassin drama The American, dropped to No 3 with $5.9m, for a 12-day haul of $28.3m.

Rounding out the top five were the violent exploitation homage Machete with $4.2m, and Drew Barrymore's latest romantic comedy bomb Going the Distance with $3.8m. Their respective 10-day totals rose to $20.8m and $14m.

The top 12 films earned about $68m, according to the box office analysis division of Hollywood.com. This ranks as the lowest total since the September 5-7 weekend of 2008, when the top 12 pulled in just $50m.

Focus Features is a unit of General Electric Co's NBC Universal. Machete was released by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp. Going the Distance was released by Warner Bros Pictures, a unit of Time Warner Inc.

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