Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?, starring pop star Janet Jackson dubuted at the top of box office in North America this weekend with US$21.5 million, according to preliminary figures released Sunday.

In Tyler Perry's latest film, Jackson and Perry play a couple who are among the four married couples gathering for a reunion weekend at a snowy cabin.

The romantic comedy took in more than the combined total of films starring Oscar winners George Clooney and Cate Blanchett and ended the two-week dominance of box office by Disney family comedy The Game Plan, which slipped to No. 2 with US$11.5 million.

Clooney's legal drama Michael Clayton was in third with US$11 million, after expanding to over 2,500 theaters from last weekend's 15 theaters. It earned almost the same as the debuting crime drama We Own the Night, starring Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg.

Ben Stiller comedy The Heartbreak Kid, last week's No. 2, slipped to fifth with US$7.4 million in its second weekend, followed by Blanchett's historical drama Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which debuted with a disappointing US$6.2 million.
 
(Xinhua News Agency October 15, 2007)