Friday saw a 0.8% increase in box office revenue over the previous Friday.

After the box office non-event that was last Friday leading in to the otherwise lucrative Memorial Day Weekend in the US, this Friday saw a big opening film return to make great business.

Disney/Pixar's latest offering UP opened to an estimated $21.4M on Friday, easily leading the pack and managing to do slightly better than the distributor's previous film WALL-E. Although the film is bit more odd-ball than their previous efforts, all indications are pointing to another winner, both in the commercial and critical spheres. Depending on how the box office plays out over the weekend, UP could potentially make $70M by the end of Sunday.

Landing in second place after a surprising number one spot last Friday is Ben Stiller's NIGHT AT THE MUSEM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN which earned an estimated $7.5M. Although losing arond 50% of its audience, the film has started its second weekend fairly well despite bad word of mouth.

Third place goes to another new opener, Sam Raimi's welcome return to horror DRAG ME TO HELL, which earned an estimated $6.4M on Friday. Fans of the director who desired him to return to his roots seem to be delighted with this film which is from all accounts vintage Raimi, albeit with a bit more panache and directorial flair.

TERMINATOR SALVATION is fast becoming the biggest lemon this year, crashing all the way down to fourth spot with an estimated $5M on Friday and losing 65% of its audience. The lacklustre performance of this entry in the franchise would appear to have killed off any notion of future films, particularly with the poor reception and its just about guaranteed inability to recoup its mammoth $200M budget.

Moving from a loser to a winner, STAR TREK is still holding up well, earning an estimated $3.6M on Friday and in doing so crossing the coveted $200M mark after 22 days of release, the first film in the franchise to reach this amount. The film had its smallest Friday-Friday percentage drop thus far at 38.6% and shows no signs of petering out just yet.

Ron Howard's ANGELS & DEMONS finds it way down to sixth spot with an estimated $3.4M on Friday. The film is now clearly not going to recoup its budget back domestically despite some great business overseas.

The remaining box office estimates for films on Friday are as follows: DANCE FLICK ($1.6M), X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE ($1.1M), GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST ($0.6M), OBSESSED ($0.2M).

The North American box office took in an estimated total of $51.1 million for the whole of Friday 29th May 2009.