“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” has burst into the North American box office taking $73m in its opening weekend. It easily topped the chart, which saw “Transformers: Age of Extinction” slip to second.
The 'Apes' epic also picked up another $31m from international markets. Set 10 years after 2011's “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, the sequel follows the battle for dominance between humans and intelligent apes. Andy Serkis has reprised his performance-capture role as Caesar, the ape who leads his species after encountering a colony of humans who survive a deadly virus.
Serkis also famously played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, which also used performance capture, which electronically tracks an actor's movements and expressions so they can be translated into computer generated imagery (CGI).
Directed by Matt Reeves, it also stars Gary Oldman, Keri Russell and Jason Clarke. A second sequel to be directed by Reeves is already in the works to further extend the franchise which first began with 1968's “Planet of the Apes”, based on Pierre Boulle's French novel. Four movies followed in the 1970s, as well as a critically panned 2001 reboot by Tim Burton.
Elsewhere on the chart, Melissa McCarthy and Susan Sarandon comedy “Tammy” - about a fast food worker who gets fired and takes her hard-drinking grandmother on a road trip - was at three. Sequels “22 Jump Street” and “How to Train Your Dragon 2” took the fourth and fifth spots.

Source: BBC