Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children topped a feeble crop of new releases to pick up first place at the weekend US box office, opening to $28.5 million.

That’s a mediocre start given the fantasy film’s $110 million budget. However, the adaptation of Ransom Riggs’s bestselling young adult novel is doing well overseas where it made $36.5 million from 59 territories, so its global grosses could push it into the black. Burton is responsible for blockbusters such as Batman and Planet of the Apes, but his commercial touch has been spotty of late. He has not had a major hit since 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, with audiences rejecting the likes of Dark Shadows, Frankenweenie and Big Eyes.

Fox domestic distribution chief Chris Aronson said he was pleased with the results but said it was too early to say whether or not a new franchise had been created.

“It’s a promising start, but it’s too early to tell,” he said. “There are multiple books and they are bestsellers, so the door is open.”

Sequels or not, Miss Peregrine’s is in a much better position than Deep Water Horizon, after the expensive adventure drama from the Lone Star team of Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg collapsed with a $20.6 million opening. The look at the men and women who were forced to grapple with one of the worst oil spills in history cost roughly $120 million to produce after incentives are taken into account.

Last weekend's champion, The Magnificent Seven, slid to third place, earning $15.7 million. The animated comedy Storks and Clint Eastwood's Sully, took fourth and fifth place, earning $13.8 million and $8.4 million, respectively.

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.