Fast & Furious: Breakes box office records

Fast & Furious: Breakes box office records

Justin Lin directed "Fast & Furious" has reached the No. 1 spot at the box office with high-octane ticket sales that hit $72.5 million in three days.

In the film, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker resurrect their roles as old foes who team up to confront a common enemy.

The movie set a number of notable records:

1. Best April opening ever, beating "Anger Management's" $42.2 million, which was set in 2003.

2. Best Universal Pictures opening ever (three-day), beating "The Lost World: Jurassic Park's" $72.1 million.

3. Best opening yet in 2009, easily beating the bows of the more-buzzed-about "Monsters vs. Aliens" ($59.3 million) and "Watchmen" ($55.2 million).

4. Best F&F franchise opening ever, beating "2 Fast 2 Furious'" $50.5 million.

The movie "Fast & Furious" is also best opening ever for director Justin Lin and stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster.

"Monsters vs. Aliens" finished in second place for the weekend with $33.5 million, a 44% drop from its opening performance last weekend. In 10 days, it has banked $105.7 million.

"The Haunting in Connecticut" fell to third place from second with $9.6 million.

"Knowing" fell to fourth from third with sales of $8.1 million.

Overall, the box office was up a whopping 68% from the weekend last year, when holdover "21" outplayed a number of weak new movies.

Here are the list of US box office top 10:

1 Fast & Furious - $72.5m

2 Monsters vs. Aliens - $33.5m

3 The Haunting in Connecticut - $9.6m

4 Knowing - $8.1m

5 I Love You, Man - $7.9m

6 Adventureland - $6m

7 Duplicity - $4.3m

8 Race to Witch Mountain - $3.4m

9 12 Rounds - $2.3m

10 Sunshine Cleaning - $1.9m