Several movies took off this weekend, with James Gray’s cerebral interplanetary action thriller Ad Astra leading the way. Fox’s high concept, the star-studded deep-space spectacle made $45.2 million globally on its earthly debut. Brad Pitt stars as an astronaut who’s sent out to investigate the fate of a lost experimental expedition, which had been captained by his father (Tommy Lee Jones) when its volatile cargo threatens to destroy the entire solar system. Donald Sutherland joins him on the mission for a while as its commander while Liv Tyler play’s Pitt’s estranged wife. Ad Astra will be one of the last original IP Fox films to see the light, and almost certainly the last with a budget in the range of $100 million after Disney scrapped the vast majority of their new acquisition’s development slate back in April.

Domestic sales for Ad Astra totaled $19.2 million which was good enough for second place, right behind British TV sensation Downton Abbey. Foreign numbers were just above that at $26 million. Its biggest markets, tied at $2.8 million apiece, were the UK and South Korea. France started at $2.7 million. Next after that is Spain where it had a strong local opening of $2.2 million, and again the same figure for Japan. Russia, Brazil, and Italy are up next week. Hong Kong and Taiwan both have opening dates later this month but there’s still no confirmation on a mainland China release.

Downton Abbey made its way to the big screen for it’s last hoorah and came in second on the global chart with $41 million. 31 of those millions came from the US, where it led a very crowded domestic chart. Downton sees the series’ main cast of Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Michelle Dockery, and Elizabeth McGovern was thrown into fresh intrigue and scandal when King George V announces that he’ll be staying at the abbey as part of a nationwide tour. UK sales reached $15.6 million after this frame while worldwide numbers sit at $61 million.

Next up, a film that is as American as Downton Abbey is British; Rambo: Last Blood, the fifth big screen bloodbath for Sylvester Stallone’s titular bodybuilding commando, took fourth overall with $28.12 million. After the events of Rambo First Blood, and Rambo First Blood Part 2, and Rambo III, where John Rambo comes out of retirement for a mission only he could survive, and eleven years after Rambo (2008,) when a 60-year-old Rambo has no choice but to take on one last deadly mission, now, again in 2019,  Rambo is called to action. He’s raising horses in Arizona. But he’s forced out of retirement. One more time. For one more last mission. And this time he’s going to Mexico. Foreign plays were worth $9.1 million. The numbers so far are just about on par with distributor Lionsgate’s last hit Angel Has Fallen. This looks set to be another of the studio’s trademark mid-budget action winners.

On to holdovers, It Chapter 2 reached $385 million worldwide and Hustlers closed its second frame at $72.3 million.

See the latest world box office estimates: