After its release was delayed four times due to the coronavirus pandemic, Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy finally got shown in the movie theaters and zoomed to the top of the box office chart with $28.4 million.

The film proved once more the draw of Reynolds, especially since video game movies are not always winners at the box office. Free Guy, written by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, narrates the story of a bank teller (Reynolds) who finds out he is a non-player character in a video game and chooses to become a hero by saving his pals from being deleted by the game’s creator.

Director Shawn Levy had passed on the script but when he met Reynolds through Hugh Jackman, he read the script again with Reynolds. The result is the weekend’s North American winner at the turnstiles, with both the critics and moviegoers giving a thumbs up to the action-comedy.

As Free Guy performed even better than predicted at the start of the weekend, Reynolds tweeted that Disney ordered a sequel of the movie, which also stars Jodie Comer, Taika Waititi, Dwayne Johnson, John Krasinski, Hugh Jackman, Channing Tatum and Tina Fey.

Placing second was another debuting movie, Don’t Breathe 2, the first feature directing credit of Rodo Sayagues, who co-wrote the 2016 original horror hit with Fede Alvarez (also that first film’s director). Taking place eight years after the events of Don’t Breathe, the sequel sees the return of Stephen Lang as Norman Nordstrom.

The Sony Pictures release, which co-stars Brendan Sexton III and Madelyn Grace, earned $10.6 million.

After three weekends, Disney’s Jungle Cruise is still sailing along smoothly with $9 million for a third-place finish.

While it ranked fourth, Respect, which stars Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin, opened solidly since its $8.8 million take was regarded by box office analysts as on the higher end of expectations.

Film reviews have unanimously praised Hudson’s portrayal of the Queen of Soul in the biopic by Liesl Tommy in her feature-directing debut.

Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Audra McDonald, Saycon Sengbloh, Hailey Kilgore, Brenda Nicole Moorer, and Marc Maron also star in Respect, of which Franklin herself was involved until her death in 2018.

On its second weekend, The Suicide Squad fell to the fifth spot with $7.75 million. Featuring Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, the DC Extended Universe movie has earned $42.89 million so far.

Making up the rest of the top ten were, in order: Old ($2.4 million), Black Widow ($2 million), Stillwater ($1.3 million), The Green Knight ($1.16 million), and Space Jam: A New Legacy ($1.11 million).

Internationally, Free Guy also ruled with $22.5 million, with many of those ticket sales coming from Korea, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

The Suicide Squad took in $17 million for an offshore total of $75.2 million so far.

After hauling $8.1 million, Vin Diesel’s F9 sped to an international milestone and became the first Hollywood movie to cross $500 million overseas since 2019.

The Justin Lin-directed blockbuster joins China’s Hi, Mom and Detective Chinatown 3 and Japan’s Demon Slayer: Mugen Train in the elite $500 million offshore club during the COVID-19 health crisis era.

Also doing well in the overseas markets were Jungle Cruise ($6.7 million), Paramount’s Paw Patrol: The Movie, an animated feature voiced by Randall Park, Dax Shepard, Jimmy Kimmel, Iain Armitage, Will Brisbin, and Ron Pardo ($5.8 million) and Don’t Breathe 2 ($3.4 million).