Audiences flock to new Elm Street

Critical lashings failed to keep a regenerated Freddy Krueger at bay this weekend, as the scarred serial killer headed straight to the top of the box office.

The remake of the 1984 slasher classic A Nightmare On Elm Street – rebooted with Jackie Earle Haley in the (serial) killer role made famous by Robert Englund – had a dream opening weekend, taking $32m and quelling How To Train Your Dragon ’s box office reign.

So even though this new Nightmare , the debut of pop video director Samuel Bayer, failed to win over the critics (its cherry picking of the best bits from just about every one of the previous seven flicks can't have helped), a sequel could be on the horizon.

DreamWorks’ Dragon flick took a diminished $10.8m at the BO, perching pretty in second place. But seeing as it’s already well on the way to becoming a money-grabbing franchise we can’t imagine Spielberg and co are too bothered.

Elsewhere, Date Night dug its heels in at third place, taking $7.6m, while Jennifer Lopez’s “don’t call it a comeback” comeback (oops) The Back-Up Plan dropped from second to fourth place. New entry Furry Vengeance jumped straight into fifth place with $6.5m despite one of the lowest Rotten Tomatoes ratings ever - a feeble 2% .

In its second week on release, The Losers failed to muster much excitement with a sub-par $6m, while people were still checking out Clash Of The Titans (we’re not sure why, maybe it's Sam Worthington in a skirt) to the tune of $5.9m and a seventh place spot.

Kick-Ass remained in the top ten at eighth (three spots lower than last week), with a further earning of $4.4m, while Death At A Funeral and Oceans rounded out the top ten with $4m and $2.6m respectively.

Next week, Tony Stark makes his return in the US with Iron Man 2 . But with the critics over here lashing him almost as badly as Freddy, can the superhero manufacture himself another hit? Or is it to the scrapheap with him?

What did you think of Iron Man 2 ?