Big Hero 6 tops North American box office with $56.2 million

Big Hero 6 has beaten star-studded Interstellar into second place at the North America box office over the weekend.

Disney’s cartoon Big Hero 6 – based on characters from Marvel comics – amassed $56.2 million, eclipsing Interstellar‘s takings of $50 million.

Space movie Interstellar, starring Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey, took first place in the global box office rundown.

Ouija and Nightcrawler, last week’s joint number one, fell to four and six.

It is only the fourth time in US box office history that two films have opened with $50 million or above, according to experts Rentrak.

Interstellar, the latest film by Dark Knight and Inception director Christopher Nolan, which tells the story of astronauts who are searching for a habitable planet after the Earth is decimated by dust storms, cost $165 million to make.

It has inevitably been compared to last year’s starry space epic Gravity, which had a bigger box office haul in its opening week.

Interstellar is likely to enjoy a further worldwide sales boost when it opens in China on November 12, while its makers have said they will target families and young men in a bid to sustain its ticket sales.