LOS ANGELES (AP) — Baseball has scored a rare hit in Hollywood, while another American institution – Tom Cruise — has delivered his latest hit overseas.

The Jackie Robinson tale 42 took in US$27.3 million to claim the weekend box-office championship domestically, according to studio estimates yesterday.

The film has yet to open overseas, where the sport is a harder sell. But Cruise knocked it out of the park with a US$61.1 million international launch in 52 countries for his sci-fi thriller Oblivion.

That bodes well for the domestic debut of Oblivion next Friday. The film stars Cruise as a workman on a devastated future Earth who lands in a battle with aliens.

If Oblivion packs in comparable domestic crowds, it will help maintain the action-star momentum Cruise regained with 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. That return to box-office luster came after some fitful years that followed odd turns in his personal life, culminating with the breakup of his marriage to Katie Holmes last year.

Released by Warner Bro, 42 easily beat the domestic start of an established franchise in Scary Movie 5. The Weinstein Co sequel opened in second-place with US$15.2 million, the smallest debut for the horror-comedy series.

Three of the previous four Scary Movie installments had debuts of US$40 million or more.

On the other hand, 42 outdid the usual expectations for baseball movies, which usually do modest business at best. Box-office trackers had expected 42 to pull in less than US$20 million.

The previous weekend’s top draw, Sony’s horror remake Evil Dead, tumbled to No 5 with US$9.5 million, raising its domestic haul to US$41.5 million.

The $27.3 million opening for 42 is a record for a baseball flick in terms of straight dollars, topping the $19.5 million debut of Moneyball in 2011. Factoring in higher ticket prices, the US$13.7 million debut of 1992’s A League of Their Own would have been on par with 42 in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars.

The film stars Chadwick Boseman as Robinson and Harrison Ford as Brooklyn Dodgers boss Branch Rickey, who brought No 42 onto the team in 1947 as the Major Leagues’ first black player.