Friday saw a 59.5% increase in box office revenue over the previous Friday.

It's the official beginning of the North American summer season and as the percentage increase above suggests, the first of the big films for 2009 has entered the market place in X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE. The Hugh Jackman-starring blockbuster earned an impressive estimate of $35M on Friday, accounting for just over 60% of the entire box office for that day. The film will have a huge opening weekend, however longevity is in question as both the general public and critics are not being kind to this entry in the franchise, despite the general consensus being that it is better than its predecessor X-MEN: THE LAST STAND.

Opening in second place with an estimate of $5.8M is the fantasy comedy, GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST. Although having an intriguing premise (it's a riff on the classic tale "A Christmas Carol"), the Matthew McConaghy-Jennifer Garner starrer got lost in Wolverine's shadow and will have to contend with being a distant second this weekend. Word of mouth was apparently worse than for Wolverine, so expect this to drop off the map very soon.

Landing in third place after a stellar opening last Friday is the Beyonce Knowles thriller OBSESSED, which earned an estimated $4.15M on Friday. The film has so far earned an amazing $38M since opening last weekend, all against a tiny budget of $20M. Although it will get crunched by the onslaught of the blockbusters in the coming weeks, the film has already done remarkably well and should end up with a decent final tally.

The remaining films for Friday are holdovers from previous weeks, including: 17 AGAIN ($1.98M), THE SOLOIST ($1.67M), FIGHTING ($1.45M), MONSTERS VS ALIENS ($1.3M), EARTH ($1.2M), STATE OF PLAY ($1.1M), HANNAH MONTANA THE MOVIE ($1.1M).

The North American box office took in an estimated total of $54.8 million for the whole of Friday 1st May 2009.