MUMBAI: Mark Steven Johnson’s Ghost Rider, starring Nicholas Cage and Eva Mendes, raked in $44.5 million on its opening weekend at the North American box-office.
 
The film, that released on 16 February 2007, averaged $12,296 from 3,619 locations. Based on the popular Marvel Comics character, Ghost Rider opened higher than the $35.1 million bow of National Treasure, Cage’s previous best opening.
 
The visual effects-driven Ghost Rider notched up one-third of all ticket sales for the weekend gone by and delivered Hollywood’s biggest opening for 2007.

Ghost Rider will release in India on 23 February 2007 with over 200 prints and will be dubbed in Hindi as Mahakaal, as well as in Tamil and Telugu. This is Hollywood’s first wide release in India this year.

The movie also stars Wes Bentley, Sam Elliott, Donal Logue and Peter Fonda.