The aliens of "District 9" landed with a dramatic win in the top spot at the North American boxoffice and dethroned the king of the week "G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra" on Friday.

A poster of "District 9"

Sony's R-rated low-budget sci-fi tale, directed by Neill Blomkamp and bearing the imprimatur of producer Peter Jackson, came seemingly out of nowhere as it took in an estimated 14.2 million dollars for its opening day in 3,049 theaters across the U.S. and Canada. That puts it on track to rake in a weekend haul well north of 30 million dollars, according to preliminary estimates made by North American boxoffice authorities.

Of last weekend's top boxoffice performers, "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," took the biggest fall, in part due to its mostly male audience defecting to "District 9." The Paramount's big-budget event film, which bowed to 22.1 million dollars on its opening day last Friday, earned 7 million dollars, a dramatical drop of 68 percent as it picked up 7 million dollars on the first day of its second frame, taking the third spot. While its declines the rest of the weekend likely won't be quite as severe, it could easily decline 60 percent or more on its second weekend, a sign of lagging moviegoer interest in the 175-million-dollar production. So far it has made 83.2 million dollars domestically.

Female moviegoers, meanwhile, found a new crush in Warners Bros' "The Time Traveler's Wife," female-targeted adaptation of the bestselling book. Robert Schwentke's romance starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams collected 7.7 million dollars in 2,988 theaters for a second-place showing.

The other sophomore entry, "Julie & Julia," from Sony, showed more resilience. It fell by just 44 percent from its opening Friday, taking in 3.6 million dollars worth of tickets and slid to fourth place.

Rounding out the top five was Disney's "G-Force," grossing 2.1 million dollars at the beginning of its fourth weekend.

(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2009)