After Earth flops on opening weekend

New Will Smith film lands in third place in the US box office chart

Disappointing... opening weekend for new Will Smith sci-fi film (Copyright: Sony)

Will Smith's new film 'After Earth' has landed in third place in the US box office on its opening weekend, making not much more than half what was predicted by its studio Sony.

The M. Night Shyamalan-directed film brought in $26.5 million (£17.4 million) - on its $130 million (£85.4 million) budget - and only $1 million (£657,000) on its opening night last Thursday.

Analysts had expected an opening weekend of around $40 million (£26.2 million) for Smith's pet project, which he had the idea for, co-stars in with his son Jaden and pushed for 'Sixth Sense' helmsman Shyamalan to direct.

The film was beaten into the third spot by 'Now You See Me', the all-star magic heist romp, and 'Fast & Furious 6', which was the reigning number one since opening last weekend.

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It's said to be a potential blow for the dominance of Smith at the box office, being a far cry from the openings of 'Men In Black 3', which made $54.6 million on its opening weekend, and 2007's 'I Am Legend', which made $77.2 million.

The film received witheringly bad reviews last week, scoring a lowly 13% 'fresh' rating on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Joe Morgenstern, the critic at the Wall Street Journal, went as far as to question whether it was 'the worst film ever made'.

It's also received a great deal of attention for its similarities to the teachings of Scientology, and not merely reviewers comparing it to John Travolta's disastrous Scientology film 'Battlefield Earth'.

Though Smith has long been rumoured to be a member of the controversial church, he has never publicly said so.

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Both the concept of the film being based on an abandoned Earth and its central theme of overcoming fear and doubt have been compared to some of the key tenets of Scientology.

Volcanos, as heavily used in the film, also have strong significance in the religion.

Still, despite the disappointing opening weekend, Smith remains among the top three most bankable movie stars on the planet.

His films have made studios $6.4 billion worldwide, just behind Tom Cruise at $7.6 billion and Tom Hanks at $8.1 billion.