'The Other Woman' tops North American box office

Los Angeles- Agence Presse France

Cast members Leslie Mann, Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton pose at the premiere of the film "The Other Woman" in Los Angeles, California, in this April 21, 2014 file photo. "The Other Woman" is a somewhat rare species in today's film fauna - a comedy by women, about women and for women. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

     
Romantic comedy "The Other Woman" shrugged off a barrage of negative reviews to claim top spot at the North American box office this weekend, estimated figures showed Sunday.

The movie, starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Upton and Leslie Mann as three women who gang up on the man they discover has been cheating on them, took $24.7 million on its opening weekend, figures from Exhibitor Relations showed.

The opening came despite the film receiving some savagely critical reviews, with the New York Times branding it "dumb, lazy, clumsily assembled and unoriginal."   Second place was occupied by "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," the latest big-screen adventure based on the iconic Marvel superhero starring Chris Evans.
  
The film added another $16 million on its fourth week of release, taking its North American earnings to just under $225 million.

 "Heaven Is For Real," starring Greg Kinnear as the father of a four-year-old boy who wakes up from emergency surgery with a story about going to heaven and back, took third with $13.8 million.
 
Fourth was taken by animated children's movie "Rio 2," a follow-up to the 2011 hit about a family of blue macaw parrots.
 
The movie, which features the voices of Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway in the lead roles, took $13.6 million.
 
Fifth place meanwhile went to "Brick Mansions", a crime drama set in a dystopian near-future Detroit which stars tragic "Fast and Furious" actor Paul Walker in a lead role.
 
Walker, who was killed in a high-speed crash last November, plays an undercover detective battling corruption. The movie, a remake of the 2004 French film "District 13", earned $9.6 million.
 
Big-budget science fiction flop "Transcendence" meanwhile slipped two places to sixth.
 
The $100 million film, starring Johnny Depp as a scientist who escapes death when his brain is uploaded into a computer, earned $4.1 million on its second weekend.
 
British horror film "The Quiet Ones," starring Jared Harris -- son of late acting legend Richard Harris -- opened in seventh with $4 million. The movie tells the story of an Oxford University professor who attempts to create a poltergeist.

"Bears," Disney's documentary about a family of grizzly bears living in Alaska, took $3.606 million for eighth.
 
Ninth place was taken by "Divergent" the tale of a young woman in a futuristic society based on the popular young adult novel of the same name, with $3.6 million.

The top 10 was completed by horror spoof "A Haunted House 2" with $3.1 million