Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones' reprisal of their roles as world-saving secret agents in Men in Black 3 collected $70 million at the North American box office in its initial weekend, putting Sony Pictures in a strong position leading into a summer of expensive bets for the studio.

Sony made a hefty wager on three big-budget films it will release over the next 10 weeks, risking as much as $1 billion to make and market MIB 3 and reboots of Spider-Man and Total Recall in the US and foreign markets.

Sony's strong opening came during a year of big budget misfires.

Universal Studios' Battleship sank at the US box office, likely resulting in a loss for owner Comcast Corp. John Carter, which will go down in history as one of the biggest bombs of all time, losing $200 million for Walt Disney Co.

MIB 3, which cost more than $215 million to produce and at least $100 million more to market, needed to open with at least $56 million over the holiday weekend to break even, according to analyst Tony Wible, a managing partner at Janney Montgomery Scott, who does not follow Sony but compiles a database to predict future film performances.

Sony will release the second of its big-budget films on Sunday, with the latest edition of Spider-Man. For its new film, Sony reduced costs and replaced the previous star, Tobey Maguire, with Andrew Garfield.

Still, The Amazing Spider-Man cost the studio about $215 million to produce.

Reuters