The Jackie Robinson biopic 42 topped the North American box office with a better-than-anticipated $27.2 million, while the Tom Cruise science fiction epic Oblivion, which is based on a comic book, earned an estimated $61.1 million from more than 7 thousand venues in 52 overseas territories.  Scary Movie 5 opened in second place with an estimated $15.2 million, but the film may prove to be “one sequel to many” as its debut paled beside that of its predecessor Scary Movie 4, which bowed with $40.2 million on this very same weekend back in 2006.

42, which was directed by Brian Helgeland, attracted an older crowd with 83% of the audience over 25, but it had good gender balance (48% male, 52% female) and reportedly did well with all racial groups (the studio did not break down attendance by race).  The movie earned a stellar “A+” CinemaScore from audiences, which could signal that it will have the kind of “legs” enjoyed by The Blind Side in 2009, which opened with $34 million and went on to earn $256 million domestically and The Help, which debuted to $26 million in 2011 and went on to gross $170 million in North America.  Those films also took on racial prejudice and earned “A+” ratings from their opening weekend audiences.

As might be expected Scary Movie 5 played to a much younger crowd with 75% of the crowd at the “PG-13” comedy under 25, and 35% under17.  The studio withheld Scary Movie 5 from the normal review process—usually a very bad sign—so neither the movie’s pitiful 5% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes nor the audience’s poor “C-“ CinemaScore should come as any sort of a surprise.  Scary Movie 5’s modest $20 million price tag means that losses from this turkey will be minimal—but what about the damage to the careers of those stellar, “anything for a buck” performers Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan?  With opening weekend attendance down 70% from Scary Movie 4, this is a franchise that is in trouble.

Third place went to Dreamworks’ animated feature The Croods, which continues to benefit from a lack of competition for the family audience as it declined just 36% in its fourth weekend as it earned an estimated $13.2 million to become the #2 film of 2013 so far with a total of $142.5 million.

G.I. Joe Retaliation dropped 48.3% in its third frame and finished in fourth with an estimated $10.8 million.  This weekend the new G.I. Joe movie became the fourth film of 2013 to pass the $100 million mark domestically.

Last week’s top film, the remake of the cult horror movie Evil Dead, took a tumble, falling 63.1% as it earned just $9.5 million in its second frame.  Universals 3-D reconversion of Jurassic Park fell 52.2%, but still managed to earn $8.8 million and bring its domestic total to nearly $32 million.  Since it only cost $10 million to add the extra dimension, we probably haven’t seen the last of these retrofitted classics.

The action film Olympus Has Fallen ended at #7 in its fourth weekend.  The movie has earned nearly $82 million and still has an outside chance of breaking the $100 million mark.  Meanwhile Disney’s Oz: The Great and Powerful slipped to #8 in its sixth weekend.  Sam Raimi’s prequel to the 1939 classic has now grossed $219.4 million domestically and should finish around $230 million.

Mention should be made of the indie crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines that stars Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper.  The film added 484 theaters (for a total of 514) and earned an estimated $4 million, which was good enough for #10 on the list, though the movie’s $7,819 per venue average was beaten in the Top Ten only by 42, which had an average of $9,074.

The latest Ghibli film, From Up on Poppy Hill, added 7 theaters (for a total of 48) and earned a modest $97,800.

Check back here next week to see whether the comic book-based Oblivion or the sports drama Home Run can score at the box office like 42.