Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams The Vow tops the US box office

Eight years after her rain-soaked smooches with Ryan Gosling in The Notebook caused audiences to swoon, Rachel McAdams has done it again with romantic drama The Vow .

The amnesia-tinged romance landed first place at the US box office this weekend, nabbing itself a not inconsiderable $41m. That’s a figure that should spare Notebook (which had an opening haul of $13m) few blushes.

Coming up right behind The Vow was Denzel Washington’s actioner Safe House , which made an impressive $39m in its first weekend, easily trumping nearest competition Journey 2 , which only managed $27m.

George Lucas should be celebrating, too, as the 3D re-release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace opened in fourth place with a respectable $23m. Not the number one spot Lucas was surely hoping for, but not bad considering most people already own it on DVD.

Closing out the top five was microbudget sci-fi Chronicle , which added $12m to its honey pot, giving it a total of $40m. Given it was made for just $15m, we should probably expect a sequel to get a green light soon.

Check out the rest of the box office takings below…

1 The Vow $41,700,000 $41.7
2 Safe House $39,330,000 $39.3
3 Journey 2 $27,550,000 $27.5
4 Phantom Menace 3D $23,000,000 $23
5 Chronicle $12,300,000 $40.1
6 The Woman in Black $10,300,000 $35.4
7 The Grey $5,080,000 $42.8
8 Big Miracle $3,860,000 $13.1
9 The Descendants $3,500,000 $70.7
10 Underworld Awakening $2,500,000 $58.9

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.