AFTER a year of slumping box office sales and controversial storylines, a group of mutant heroes appears to have reversed Hollywood’s decline.

X-Men: The Last Stand enjoyed the most lucrative Memorial Day weekend opening in Hollywood history with takings of $120 million (£65 million). The $103 million it took from Friday to Sunday made it the fourth-highest weekend opening of all time.

The unexpectedly strong numbers came after savage reviews for Hollywood’s other two great hopes of the blockbuster season: Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible III and The Da Vinci Code, starring a subdued and fattened-up Tom Hanks.

In box office terms, M:I:III was a significant disappointment, taking only $47 million, while The Da Vinci Code earned a healthier $77 million over its opening weekend.

All numbers are for the domestic American box office takings only — regarded as the most reliable way to predict a film’s ticket sales over its lifetime.

X Men: The Last Stand was directed by Brett Ratner, best known for the Rush Hour films, and it won positive reviews at its recent Cannes Film Festival debut — unlike The Da Vinci Code, which was widely derided by critics. Rolling Stone was typical of the press in describing the Vatican conspiracy thriller — adapted from the bestselling Dan Brown novel — as a “ dreary, droning, dull-witted adaptation”.

However, X-Men was not an out-and-out critical success either, winning an average B- score among American critics, according to Yahoo! Movies.

The box office takings, however, proved that Hollywood has not yet been made obsolete by DVDs and home theatre systems, as some have claimed.

“This is what the summer is all about,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, the box office tracking company, adding that Hollywood was starting to recover from its slump last year.

Many Americans simply refused to go to the movies in 2005, because of fare that included the homosexual cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain. As a result, Hollywood suffered its biggest decline in attendance since the mid-1980s.

As for X-Men, Mr Dergarabedian said that the film enjoyed a large fan base who had seen the previous two X-Men instalments, and a big prerelease marketing campaign.

According to historical data, only three movies have enjoyed bigger openings than X-Men in a three-day period: Spider-Man in 2002 ($114.8 million); Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith in 2005 ($108.4 million); and Shrek 2 in 2004 ($108 million).

However, X-Men — made by 20th Century Fox, part of News Corporation, parent company of The Times — broke the record for the biggest Memorial Day opening.

This had been held for nine years by Steven Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which opened to $72 million during its first three days.

According to Fox, the latest X-Men film cost about $165 million to make. The first film in the series, X-Men, opened to $54 million in 2000, and went on to earn $157 million in domestic US cinemas. The sequel, X-2: X-Men United, took $215 million.

Other big Hollywood productions expected to liven up the box office this year include Superman Returns, starring the unknown actor Brandon Routh, and a new instalment of the James Bond franchise, with Daniel Craig taking the role as the first blond 007. The films are due out in June and November respectively.

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