'WOLVERINE' 'Slashes' Friday B.O. With An Estimated $35M Opening Day

Sources Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood that Fox's X-Men Origins: Wolverine "clawed" a whopping $35 million debut Friday in part to heavy attendance at evening shows and the studio's widest release ever into 4,099 theaters.

If X-Men Origins: Wolverine keeps up this pace through Sunday, the comic prequel could potentially take in a stunning $90M total for its opening weekend, making it one of the most successful comic book film debuts of all time.

Wolverine, which "mixes action with an origin story about how Logan (Jackman) emerged from a barbaric experiment as an indestructible mutant with retractable razor-sharp claws," is helmed by South African director Gavin Hood, whose credits include Tsotsi (which won the 2005 Oscar for Best Foreign Film) and the political drama Rendition, with Meryl Streep, Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon and more.

With a screenplay by David Benioff, Wolverine is based on the Marvel comics as well as more recent work by Frank Miller and Barry Windsor-Smith, the author of the "Weapon X" graphic novels. The three X-Men films, starring Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin and more, have grossed over $1 billion worldwide.

The multi-talented Jackman won a Tony Award for playing Peter Allen in Broadway's The Boy from Oz, and also won an Emmy for hosting the 2004 Tony Awards ceremony. He was also nominated for the 1998 Olivier for Best Actor in a Musical for his Curly in the Royal National Theatre's Oklahoma! A musical theatre veteran back in Australia, he played Joe Gillis in the 1996 production of Sunset Boulevard in Melbourne, and Gaston in 1995's Beauty and the Beast.

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