“Star Trek” has beamed itself to the #1 North American box office over the weekend. Pushing aside last week’s champion “X-Men Origins: Wolverine“, this J.J. Abrams-directed sci-fi collected an estimated $72.5 million from approximately 7,400 screens at 3,849 sites in its first weekend in theaters.

The stellar number has given the movie starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Eric Bana among many others the biggest Trek opening yet, beating out the franchise’s previous record opening weekend by 1996’s “Star Trek: First Contact”. While among franchise restarts its opening bow could not overshadow “Wolverine”’s $85.1 million debut, it did outdo 2005’s “Batman Begins” and 2006’s “Superman Returns”.

“Star Trek” also made an IMAX history by becoming the biggest-grossing weekend ever in IMAX. Hauling in an estimated $8.3 million at 138 IMAX venues, it surpassed the $6.3 million pulled in by “The Dark Knight”. On its international sales, it won 23 territories from the total of 54 markets in its opening weekend and raked in $35.5 million. Top “Star Trek” sales came from the U.K., Germany, Australia, France, Russia, South Korea and Spain.

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”, on the other hand, slipped down to the second place at the box office. With 68.3% decline in sales, the Hugh Jackman’s action fantasy scored around $27 million. The additional earning brought “Wolverine” to the total of $129.6 million on its second week. Keeping positive mind despite the sales decline, Chris Aronson of 20th Century Fox said, “We think we withstood the attack of ‘Star Trek,’ if you will, and will settle into a long, successful run.”

Third on the chart was “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”. The romantic comedy about a man getting a visit from the ghosts of his jilted girlfriends grossed about $10.5 million to the cume of around $30.2 million. Rounding up the top five were “Obsessed” and “17 Again” in respective order. The Beyonce Knowles-starring “Obsessed” took in approximately $6.6 million, while the Zac Efron-toplined “17″ garnered about $4.4 million over the weekend.

Top Ten Movies at Weekend Box Office for May 8 - 10:

1. “Star Trek” - $72.5 million

2. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” - $27 million

3. “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” - $10.5 million

4. “Obsessed” - $6.6 million

5. “17 Again” - $4.4 million

6. “Next Day Air” - $4 million

7. “The Soloist” - $3.6 million

8. “Monsters vs. Aliens” - $3.4 million

9. “Earth” - $2.5 million

10. “Hannah Montana: The Movie” - $2.4 million

Related posts:

1. ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ Gets a Sequel
2. How does the new Star Trek crew look?
3. Star Trek: Phase 2: Blood and Fire part 1
4. 7 New Star Trek Movie Photos
5. Rainn Wilson “kidnaps” Office co-star