'X-Men' mutants weaken with $56M prequel debut

  Entertainment NewsLOS ANGELES -- Young X-Men don't have the same box-office superpowers as their older selves.

Studio estimates Sunday pegged "X-Men: First Class" at a solid No. 1 opening with a $56 million weekend.

But the prequel chronicling the formative years of the comic-book mutants found smaller audiences than the franchise's first four big-screen adventures, which featured older versions of the X-Men.

Debut weekends for the last three "X-Men" flicks ranged from $85.1 million to $102.8 million. The original "X-Men" opened 11 years ago with $54.5 million, but that would amount to about $80 million today adjusting for inflation.

The previous weekend's top movie, "The Hangover Part II," fell to second-place with $32.4 million. That raised its domestic total to $186.9 million but represented a steep 62 percent drop from its huge opening weekend.

(Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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