MUMBAI: Kate Beckinsale’s latest Underworld movie Underworld Awakening opened at No. 1 this weekend after making an estimated $25.4 million, it is understood.

While this is the fourth film in the vampire action saga, Beckinsale starred in the first two films as the warrior Selene. After taking a reprieve for part three, she returns for this latest installment.

Underworld Awakening was shown for the first time in 3D as well as on IMAX screens, where it made $3.8 million or in short 15 per cent of the film‘s weekend gross.
 
Distributor Sony Screen Gems had hoped the film would end up in the low-$20 million range. But according to the studio‘s president of worldwide distribution Rory Bruer the film did even better despite a snow storm that hit much of the Midwest and East Coast.

Opening in second place was Red Tails from executive producer George Lucas, about the Tuskegee Airmen who were the first black fighter pilots to serve in World War II. The film made an estimated $19.1 million, according to 20th Century Fox, which was well above expectations.

Last week‘s No. 1 film, the Universal smuggling thriller ‘Contraband‘ starring Mark Wahlberg, dropped to the No. 3 spot with $12.2 million. It‘s now made $46.1 million in two weeks.

The 9/11 drama from Warner Bros., starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, came in fourth place with $10.5 million.

Meanwhile, Steven Soderbergh‘s international action film Haywire from Relativity Media, starring mixed martial arts superstar Gina Carano in her first film role, opened in fifth place with $9 million.