Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg’s thriller in which it is revealed the US has been experimenting on UFOs for almost 80 years, is on track to become his best performing original title in the US.

The film, which opened in 77 territories, took $44m (£32.7m) domestically over the three-day weekend for a global total of about $92.9m (£69.4m) with $7.6m (£5.6m) of that from the UK and Ireland.

Spielberg’s most recent film, 2023’s The Fabelmans, ended on a global total of $45.6m, while 2021’s West Side Story took $76m. Disclosure Day, which stars Emily Blunt as a weather forecaster who can channel alien discourse, as well as Josh O’Connor as a whistleblower poised to tell the world about UFO abuse, cost $115m to make and an estimated $80m to market.

Pundits estimate the film will need to take around $300m to cover its costs – as cinema owners take a substantial cut of ticket prices. Spielberg’s most recent film to achieve this goal was 2018’s Ready Player One, adapted from the Ernest Cline’s novel, which took $583.5m – about 10 times its US opening.

Nearly half of that final total came from China, which has so far been less enthusiastic about Disclosure Day, where the film made $2.95m and entered the charts at No 3. More than a quarter of its Chinese gross came from Imax screenings.

In the US, almost half the grosses came from premium large format screenings. About 60% of those who bought tickets were 35 or older, and 57% are male.

Obsession, Curry Barker’s sleeper hit, was No 2 on the chart in the US, with four consecutive weekend totals bigger than its opening – and marking a best-ever result for distributors Focus Features. So far, it has taken $286m worldwide, overtaking Backrooms, another viral horror from a young YouTuber.

That film is nonetheless still performing very strongly, taking $262m worldwide. It overtook Marty Supreme to become A24’s highest grossing film after less than a fortnight on release.

Meanwhile Michael, the first part of Antoine Fuqua’s biopic of Michael Jackson, also broke records over the weekend, as its global total topped $932m, overtaking the $911m taken by Bohemian Rhapsody to become the highest grossing music biopic ever.

The film, which was also produced by Graham King, defied considerable criticism to storm the box office around the globe. Next in its crosshairs is the title of highest grossing biopic ever, which is held by Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which made $975m in 2023.