Mean Girls takes first place at US box office

Winter storms and cinema closures in North America did not dampen the opening weekend for Mean Girls.

The Paramount release, adapted from the Broadway musical and the 2004 Tina Fey movie, earned 28 million dollars (£22 million) in its first three days in cinemas according to studio estimates on Sunday.

Not accounting for inflation, that is more than the 24.4 million dollars (£19.1 million) the first movie made in its opening weekend.

The Mean Girls competition over the Martin Luther King Jr holiday weekend featured several new releases, including the Jason Statham action movie The Beekeeper and the Jay-Z produced biblical satire The Book of Clarence, in addition to a slew of awards contenders capitalising on buzz from recent nominations and the Golden Globes.

From left, Angourie Rice, Renee Rapp and Bebe Wood in a scene from Mean Girls (Jojo Whilden/Paramount/AP)

As with Barbie, another enthusiastically pink movie, female audiences made up the vast majority (76%) of opening weekend ticket buyers for Mean Girls.

According to exit polls, 70% were between the ages of 18 and 34, which means that it had appeal for audiences who had not been born when Regina George was first introduced to the world.

Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution, said: “Tina Fey is legendary and her contemporary twist has resonated with audiences, particularly the female audience.”

This iteration of Mean Girls stars Angourie Rice, Auli’i Cravalho and Renee Rapp, who played Regina on stage.

Fey returned to write and co-star in the new film, which was directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr and cost a reported 36 million dollars (£28 million) to produce.

Jason Statham on the set of The Beekeeper (Amazon MGM Studios/AP)

Amazon and MGM’s The Beekeeper debuted in second place with an estimated 16.8 million dollars (£13.1 million) from 3,303 cinemas.

Third place went to Wonka, which added 8.4 million dollars (£6.6 million) in its fifth weekend. The Timothee Chalamet-led musical has now made more than 178 million dollars (£140 million) domestically and 500 million dollars (£392 million) globally.

The Book of Clarence, a faith-based comedy/drama with a starry, ensemble cast including LaKeith Stanfield, Omar Sy, RJ Cyler, David Oyelowo, Alfre Woodard and Teyana Taylor, is not off to a promising start.

The Legendary Pictures release opened to an estimated 2.6 million dollars (£2 million) from just over 2,000 cinemas.

Written and directed by the British singer-songwriter Jeymes Samuel (stage name The Bullitts), it was self-consciously styled after Golden Age biblical epics like The Ten Commandments.