LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Comedy-drama "Why Did I Get Married?" topped the North American box-office last weekend, beating new films featuring Oscar-winners George Clooney and Cate Blanchett, figures showed Monday.
Director Tyler Perry's film -- based on his stage play and also starring pop singer Janet Jackson -- netted a surprisingly strong 21.4 million dollars, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
The film deals with the the difficulties of maintaining a solid relationship, and follows Perry's successful earlier movies "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" and "Madea's Family Reunion."
Walt Disney's football comedy "The Game Plan" was a distant second with 11 million dollars in receipts after ruling the box-office for the past two weeks.
The strong opening for "Why Did I Get Married?" left a clutch of other weighty dramas battling it out for the rest of the spoils.
Family crime saga "We Own The Night", starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg as two brothers caught up in a New York drugs war, opened with 10.8 million for third place.
"Michael Clayton," a critically acclaimed thriller starring Clooney, who plays a conflicted in-house "fixer" at one of the largest New York corporate law firms, was fourth with 10.4 million.
Ben Stiller's romantic comedy "The Heartbreak Kid", about a dream marriage turning into a nightmare, was fifth with 7.3 million.
But there was a modest opening weekend for Australian actress Blanchett and her return to the throne in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age."
The film, which sees Blanchett reprise her portrayal of British Monarch Elizabeth I, the role which propelled her to international stardom in 1998's "Elizabeth", took 6.2 million.
Jamie Foxx's Saudi Arabia-based action film "The Kingdom" was seventh with 4.6 million.
Rounding out the top 10 were: "Across the Universe" (3.8 million), "Resident Evil: Extinction," (2.6 million) and "The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2.2 million).
The top 12 films took 83.9 million dollars this weekend, compared to 99.1 million dollars on the same weekend last year, a drop of 15.4 percent.
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