X-Men: Days of Future Past topples Godzilla to score best global debut of any X-Men movie

Bryan Singer's seventh installment took a massive $281m worldwide

Nicholas Hoult, James MacAvoy and Hugh Jack in 'X-Men: Days of Future Past'

Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past has stormed past Godzilla at the global box office to take a massive $281 million on its opening weekend – the best debut of any X-Men movie.

The seventh instalment unites original stars Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart with more recent actors such as Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Peter Dinklage and Jennifer Lawrence.

In the film, released on Friday, Jackman’s Wolverine gets his steel claws out once more to rally the mutant superheroes against a terrifying threat that could signal doom for everyone.

X-Men: Days of Future Past marks a record international opening for Fox, beating James Cameron’s 2009 3D epic, Avatar.

The blockbuster cost more than $200 million to make, with Singer, who stood down from promoting it after a sex assault lawsuit was filed against him, directing and producing.

The sequel has received mixed reviews from critics, with The Independent’s Laurence Phelan praising it as a “pleasingly coherent, plot-driven action movie” and Geoffrey Macnab calling "absurdly confusing".

It toppled Gareth Edwards' Godzilla from number one, but the radioactive monster is still in second place after surpassing industry estimates to take $196.2 million worldwide last weekend.

Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore’s new rom-com Blended has not achieved such success, after suffering one of the lowest openings for a Sandler film in recent years.