LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — Deadpool & Wolverine led the North American box office again this weekend, taking in an estimated US$15.2 million and helping boost domestic August totals well above pre-pandemic levels for a strong summer finish, analysts said Sunday.

The superhero comedy from Disney and Marvel has led domestic ticket sales nearly every weekend since its release six weeks ago, partly on the draw of popular stars (and pals) Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.

Its domestic total now stands at US$603.8 million, making it only the 16th film to surpass the US$600-million mark, 11 of them produced by Walt Disney Studios, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported.

Sci-fi horror film Alien: Romulus, from Disney-owned 20th Century Studios, tallied a solid score of US$9.3 million in its third weekend to place second for the Friday-through-Sunday period.

Set decades after the original Alien, the franchise’s latest entry stars Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson as space colonists who have their own encounter with deadly xenomorphs.

Sony’s It Ends With Us, a romance drama based on the popular Colleen Hoover novel of the same name, had US$7.4 million in ticket sales to place third over the traditionally quiet US Labor Day weekend. Blake Lively stars and co-produced the film.

Reagan, a biopic about the 40th US president from ShowBiz Direct and MJM Entertainment, took in US$7.4 million, a “good domestic opening for a political biography”, said analyst David A Gross, as approving audiences ignored tepid reviews.

And, in fifth place, Twisters — Universal’s follow-up to 1996’s popular Twister — garnered an estimated US$7.2 million in ticket sales. Glen Powell plays a charming down-home storm chaser intrigued by a mysteriously prescient rival (Daisy Edgar-Jones) as they are battered by an astonishing series of tornadoes.