Jaume Collet-Serra, top of the US box office once more

Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra has reached the number-one spot in the US box office for the second time in his career, once again with actor Liam Neeson, with new thriller Non-Stop.

The film, which is released in Spain on March 21, took in $28.8 million (20 million euros), according to data from Rentrak Spain. It had a screen average of over $9,300, beating out the movie that experts had expected to dominate the box office in Oscar week, Son of God, a cut-down version for movie theaters of a miniseries about the Bible broadcast on the History Channel. That took $25.6 million, despite having been released on more screens (3,260) than Collet-Serra’s movie (3,090).

The 50-million-dollar production is set on an international flight where a mysterious passenger threatens to kill a person every 20 minutes if they do not receive $150 million. Neeson, who starred in Collet-Serra’s previous number-one movie Unknown in 2011, stars as a federal air marshal responsible for security on the plane. Appearing alongside him are Julianne Moore and, in only her second film, Mexican-Kenyan star Lupita Nyong’o, who won the award for Best Supporting Actress at Sunday’s Oscars for her performance in 12 Years a Slave.