Hellboy II top in US but Eddie Murphy's in box office purgatory

Guillermo del Toro's comic book fantasy sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army leapt to the top of the US box office at the weekend with a devilish $35.9m (£17.95m) opening haul.

The film easily beat the debut $23.2m figure for its predecessor, 2002’s Hellboy, which first introduced the demon-like character to cinemagoers, and also succeeded in knocking another leftfield superhero, Will Smith’s Hancock, off the top spot.

However, the latter still took a respectable $33m in second place and already looks to be one of the highest earning films of the summer, with $165m since opening over the US Fourth of July holiday.

Third spot went to the Jules Verne spin Journey to the Center of the Earth, which took a better-than-expected $20.6m, a figure boosted by high attendances in 3D cinemas.

The top five was rounded out by the previously released Wall-E, with $18.5m in fourth, and Wanted, with $11m in fifth.

The only other new entry on the chart was Eddie Murphy’s Meet Dave, a comedy which features the comic veteran as the captain of a spaceship which resembles his own body. It bombed badly, taking just $5.3m in seventh place.

“People liked the movie, but not enough of them came,” said Bert Livingston of studio Fox.