'The Martian' sits atop North American box office

"The Martian" continued to soar at the box office in the US and Canada, taking in an estimated $37 million over the weekend, a media report said.

The latest space film starring Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars made $108.7 in 10 days, becoming the second movie to cross $100 million this weekend.

Compared with the other two popular space films, "The Martian" is currently running 12 percent ahead of the $96.9 million that "Interstellar" had grossed after 10 days of wide release in 2014 and 11 percent behind the $122.3 million in 10-day take of 2013's "Gravity", Xinhua reported.

Adam Sandler's "Hotel Transylvania 2" clinched the second spot, taking in $20.3 million during the weekend.

The 3D computer-animated film from Sony Pictures Animation declined 39 percent from last weekend, but still earned $116.8 million over its three weeks of exhibition, according to studio estimates gathered by Rentrak.

Warner Bros' "Pan" claimed the third place in its opening weekend, with $15.5 million in estimated sales. Played in 3,515 theatres, the Peter Pan origin story starred by Hugh Jackman was directed Joe Wright.

"Pan" scored a "B+" from first night moviegoers on CinemaScore and it received just 23 percent of approval rate from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Rounding out the 10 most-popular movies this week were "The Intern" ($8.7 million), "Sicario" ($7.4 million), "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials" ($5.3 million), "The Walk" ($3.7 million), "Black Mass" ($3.1 million), "Everest" ($3 million) and "The Visit" ($2.4 million).