This week’s big budget action movie The Meg just took a huge bite out of the U.S. box-office. The Jason Statham-led movie, which is directed by Jon Turteltaub, grossed a whopping $44 million (estimated) over its first weekend, easily shadowing its expectation. The film also bagged a further $97 million in 42 territories around the world. It’s combined international take now stands at a huge $141 million since Friday, and the film stands the chance of being Warner Bros’ best performing movies of the year. Read more about The Meg box office below.

The Meg box office

The Meg box office – Shark thriller takes $141 million worldwide on its opening weekend
Li Bingbing, Cliff Curtis, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, Page Kennedy, Jessica McNamee, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Robert Taylor, Sophia Shuya Cai, and Masi Oka round out the cast of the film, which received rather luke-warm reviews from the critics last week.

Related: The Meg review
The Meg cost a reported $150 million (not including promo costs etc) so has a ways to go before it turns a profit, but it looks good for the sea-based adventure and its backers.

Elsewhere on the U.S. box-office chart was Mission: Impossible – Fallout which bagged a further $20 million over the weekend, taking it to a domestic total of $161.9 million. The film is one of the best reviewed movies of the year in terms of tent poles, and its word-pf-mouth reception is obviously reflecting it too. The film now has a worldwide total of $437.5 million, so it’s definitely a hit for Paramount Pictures, Tom Cruise and co.

Rounding out the top three is Disney’s Christopher Robin, a film which opens in the UK this coming week. The Ewan McGregor starrer scored $12.4 million over the last three days taking is North American total to $50 million and a global total of $62.1 million. The film has a budget of around $75 million but there are more territories, including the UK, for it to debut in in the coming weeks.

We’ll keep you updated on the further performance of The Meg box office as it comes in.