Liam Neeson’s return as ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills in Taken 2 easily topped the North American box office on its opening weekend, industry figures showed. The film, whose prequel relaunched Neeson as a Hollywood action star four years ago, took in a healthy $49.5 million between Friday and Sunday, said movie tracker Exhibitor Relations.

In second place this weekend was Hotel Transylvania, where animated monsters become Dracula’s guests, taking in $27.1 million – down from the top spot one week ago.

Pitch Perfect, a teen comedy-musical, was in third, with $14.8 million in takings.

In fourth place, with $12.1 million, was Looper, a mob movie starring Bruce Willis, just ahead of Franken­weenie, Tim Burton’s latest effort, which earned $11.4 million.

Cop drama End of Watch with Jake Gyllenhaal was in sixth place, on lowly takings of $4 million, followed by Clint Eastwood’s Trouble with the Curve, about a baseball recruiter losing his sight, on $3.8 million.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.