《孤岛疑云》北美票房形势大好

Shutter¹ Island, Martin Scorsese's new film with Leonardo DiCaprio, has topped the US and Canada box office chart with first weekend takings of $40.2m (£26m).

由莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥主演、马丁·斯科塞斯执导的新影片《孤岛疑云》，公映第一周就以4020万美元的票房打入美国 、加拿大票房排行榜榜首。

Shutter Island is the fourth film that DiCaprio (r) has made with Scorsese

The dark thriller² stars DiCaprio as a cop investigating a disappearance³ at a hospital for the criminally insane（精神病的，疯狂的） .

It had been scheduled for release last October before being abruptly⁴（突然地，唐突地） bumped to February by its distributor Paramount⁵.

Last week's top movie, romantic comedy Valentine's Day, fell down to two, with Avatar still going strong at three.

Worldwide, James Cameron's sci-fi epic⁶ has now made just short of $2.5 billion (£1.6 billion).

Shutter Island's better than expected performance represents a personal best for Scorsese, the Oscar-winning director of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

His biggest opener in North America before this weekend came in 2006 when crime drama The Departed made $26.9m (£17.4m) in its first weekend on release.

Paramount's vice-chairman Rob Moore has defended putting Shutter Island's release back, a decision that made it ineligible⁷（不合格的） for this year's Academy Awards.

"We knew more time was only going to help us get the word out and get a broader audience," he said.

As well as Scorsese's film performed, however, it was trounced on a screen-for-screen basis by Roman Polanski's latest The Ghost Writer.

Opening at just four cinemas in New York and Los Angeles, the political thriller made $179,000 (£115,686) over the weekend - an average of $44,750 (£28,921) per screen.

In contrast, Shutter Island - which opened in almost 3,000 cinemas - made an average of just $13,440 (£8,686) per screen.

Polanski's arrest in Switzerland last year may have stoked interest in the title, which tells of a writer hired to "ghost" a former Prime Minister's memoirs⁸.

Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan star in the film, to be released in the UK on 16 April as The Ghost.

Shutter Island is out in the UK on 12 March.