"The Fantastic Four" muscled " War of the Worlds" out of first place at the North America box office after a one-week reign, and managed to snap Hollywood's longest box office slump in more than two decades, according to preliminary figures released here Sunday.

The super-hero flick based on the Marvel Comics characters is expected to gross 56 million dollars in North America in its weekend debut, said Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.

"War of the Worlds" -- directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise -- slipped to second place with an expected take of 31.3 million dollars. That would boost its domestic gross in two weeks to 165.8 million dollars.

"Batman Begins" (10.2 million dollars) was third, followed by the debut of ``Dark Water'' (10.1 million) and ``Mr. & Mrs. Smith ''(7.8 million).

Released by 20th Century Fox, "The Fantastic Four" was hailed as the third biggest take this year so far after "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" and "War of the Worlds".

It is estimated the top 12 movies' ticket sales over the weekend would be at 141 million dollars, thus snapping the streak of Hollywood's box office slump over the previous year's for 19 consecutive weeks, the gloomiest record for the US movie industry since 1985.

Source: Xinhua