Fonda

Los Angeles, May 16 (Reuters): Two new comedies pairing veteran actors with younger stars dominated the weekend box office in North America, with the Jennifer Lopez-Jane Fonda vehicle Monster-in-Law taking top honours, according to studio estimates issued yesterday.

Monster-in-Law, Fonda’s first film since 1990’s Stanley & Iris, sold about $24 million worth of tickets since opening on May 13. It was followed by the Will Ferrell-Robert Duvall soccer comedy, Kicking & Screaming, which scored a three-day estimate of $20.9 million.

Both films outperformed the expectations of their respective studios, New Line Cinema and Universal Pictures, but they were unable to prevent the overall box office from suffering its 12th consecutive “down” weekend when compared with the year-ago period.

Hollywood hopes the force will be with it on Thursday when George Lucas’s long-awaited Star Wars: Episode III ? Revenge of the Sith kicks off the holiday weekend.

Monster-in-Law stars Fonda as a domineering mother out to sabotage the promising relationship between the characters played by Lopez and Michael Vartan.