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Los Angeles: Actor Harrison Ford cracked the box-office whip as his latest Indiana Jones movie grossed a hefty $25 million from its first day in North American cinemas, independent industry analysts reported on Friday.
The takings make it the fourth highest-grossing Thursday debut on record and bodes well for a movie industry looking to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to help shake the movie business out an early summer slump.
However, analysts were unsure whether the highly anticipated adventure movie is on track to overtake last year's Pirates of the Caribbean film as the biggest opening on a US Memorial Day holiday weekend.
Crystal Skull, directed by Steven Spielberg, is the fourth movie in the beloved and lucrative movie franchise that began in 1981 with Raiders of the Lost Ark, and is the first to hit the big screen in 19 years.
The three previous Indiana Jones movies have collectively grossed more than $1.2 billion in ticket sales worldwide.
In the latest film, Ford, 65, reprises his title role as the whip-cracking archaeologist who hates snakes, and is reunited with actress Karen Allen, his co-star from the first adventure. Set during the 1950s Cold War era, the story pits him against an evil KGB agent played by Cate Blanchett in a race to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.
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