As Xpected, X2: X-Men United Xterminated the competition at the box office.

The mutant movie sequel scored an uncanny $85.6 million from Friday to Sunday, according to final studio figures relased Monday.

Aside from getting the script writers cracking on X3, the mind-boggling gross will go down as the fourth biggest opening in Hollywood history, behind the tallies of that other Marvel mutation, Spider-Man ($114.8 million exactly one year ago), and the magical boy wizard (come to think of it, he's probably a mutant, too) of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ($90.2 million in 2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ($88.3 million last November). Now bumped down to fifth place is 2002's Star Wars: Episode II--Attack of the Clones ($80 million).

A PG-13 Fox release that reunites audiences with the extraordinary powers of Hugh Jackman's razor-clawed Wolverine, Halle Berry's turbulent Storm, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos' morphing Mystique, Anna Paquin's memory-sucking Rogue and the wiles of Ian McKellen's Magneto and Patrick Stewart's Professor Xavier, while introducing Alan Cumming's teleporting Nightcrawler and Brian Cox's mutant-hating military man Stryker, X2 rung up 61 percent of the weekend receipts. Debuting at 3,741 sites, it averaged a whopping $22,871 per, attracting more females (well, the cast does include Jackman, considered hot even in lupine form) and more 25-and-up viewers than studio prognosticators anticipated.

Fox is reporting that worldwide X2, which launched in a record-setting 80 countries, grossed an estimated $155 million, already more than half the eventual total gross of the more modestly produced X-Men. In July 2000, the original debuted domestically with $57.5 million--coincidentally making it the fourth best opening at that time (behind now surpassed record holders The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace and Mission: Impossible 2).

The only movie daring to challenge X2, the first major debut of the sequel-mad summer season, was The Lizzie McGuire Movie. The unimaginatively titled PG-rated Disney release, featuring the studio's hot young teen property Hilary Duff rocking out in Rome, came in a very respectable (under the circumstances) second with $17.3 million. At 2,825 sites, it averaged $6,138, enticing 12 percent of the weekend audience, many of them young girls.

All other openings were limited. The one with the highest per-site average was Spellbound, a Thinkfilm documentary about kids competing in the National Spelling Bee, which scored $17,508 at just one theater in New York. Fox Searchlight's R-rated The Dancer Upstairs, a political thriller starring Javier Bardem and the first feature directed by John Malkovich, debuted at 13 sites, where it pulled in an $8,165 average for a total of $106,142.

Having less impact was Blue Car, an R-rated Miramax drama starring David Strathairn as an English teacher attracted to his prize pupil. Opening at just six sites, it averaged $5,015 for $30,087. Also scoring modestly was Owning Mahowny. Sony Picture Classics' R-rated drama about money scams, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver and John Hurt, averaged $3,699 at nine sites for $33,287.

With X-Men and Duff charging in, last week's chart-topper, Identity, saw its business slide 42 percent. The whodunit thriller finished in third place for the weekend with $9.4 million.

Overall, thanks to the X-Men, the top 12 films grossed $141 million, up 89 percent from last weekend, but still 7 percent lower than this time last year, when Spider-Man debuted with even more astounding record results.

Here are the top 10 weekend films, according to receipt-tracking firm Exhibitor Relations:

1. X2: X-Men United, $85.6 million
2. The Lizzie McGuire Movie, $17.3 million
3. Identity, $9.4 million
4. Anger Management, $8.4 million
5. Holes, $6.9 million
6. Malibu's Most Wanted, $4 million
7. Confidence, $2.5 million
8. It Runs in the Family, $1.6 million
9. Bulletproof Monk, $1.474 million
10. Bend It Like Beckham, $1.47 million

(Originally published May 4, 2003 at 1:40 p.m. PT.)