MUMBAI: Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum Valentine‘s Day romantic drama The Vow opened to a sizable $41.7 million followed closely by the Denzel Washington-Ryan Reynolds action-thriller Safe House with $39.3 million.

The Vow, directed by Michael Stucsy and costing $30 million to produce, opened in 20 markets overseas, grossing $9.7 million for a worldwide opening take of $52.4 million.

One advantage Safe House had was an A- CinemaScore, versus a B CinemaScore for The Vow. Safe House played far better than expected among females, who made up 50 percent of the audience.

The films vastly over-performed, driving the weekend up more than 30 per cent from the same period last year. In the best showing for a non-holiday weekend in February, the overall revenue hit a staggering $190 million.

The superb opening of The Vow and Universal‘s Safe House wasn‘t the only surprise. Warner Bros. and New Line‘s Journey 2: The Mysterious Island raced past 20th Century Fox’s 3D rerelease of George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace to gross $27.6 million while Phantom Menace opened to $23 million.

This is the first time four films, outside of a holiday weekend, have crossed $20 million. In 2011, domestic box-office revenue tumbled and attendance slipped. On the same day last year, revenue went north by more than 11 per cent compared to last year while attendance has increased by 11 per cent.

The revenue incurred by Journey 2 was evidenced by the fact that it was up an astonishing 94 percent on Saturday, compared to 9 per cent for The Vow and 19 per cent for Safe House.

Journey 2 did big business in Imax theaters that generated $3.8 million of the film‘s gross, or 14 percent, according to IMAX senior vp worldwide distribution Phil Groves.