The Meg delivers massive sharkbite to dominate North American box office

Jason Statham's new monster shark movie The Meg has taken a huge bite out of the North American box office.

The film has debuted with a strong $44.5 million (GBP34.8 million) to harpoon the biggest shark movie opening ever.

The Meg has out-performed experts' expectations, hauling in more than twice Mission: Impossible - Fallout's weekend, to end Tom Cruise's latest number one run.

The latest Mission: Impossible blockbuster slips to two.

The Meg, which was Warner Bros. studio bosses' biggest opening of the year so far, also impressed outside North America, raking in close to $100 million (GBP78 million). That figure, added to the U.S. box office tally takes the film past its $130 million (GBP102 million) production budget.

Meanwhile, Disney’s Winnie the Pooh update, Christopher Robin, starring Ewan McGregor, has picked up another $12.7 million (GBP10 million) at the North American box office to take third place, while low-budget horror movie Slender Man debuts in fourth after already meeting its $10 million (GBP7.8 million) budget in its first weekend on release.

And director Spike Lee's hard-hitting new movie BlacKkKlansman, about a real-life African-American police officer's efforts to infiltrate white power organisation the Ku Klux Klan, debuts at five with a healthy $10.8 million (GBP8.5 million).

The movie, starring Denzel Washington's son John David, was a big hit at the Cannes Film Festival in May (18), picking up the Grand Prix award for Best Film.

BlacKkKlansman debuted on Friday - the first anniversary of the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia rally, during which a white power activist rammed his car into a group of Black Lives Matter protesters.