(Photo: Paramount)

Star Trek Beyond leaped out to a big lead on Thursday, earning over $5.5 million on its preview night. Paramount pointed out that Star Trek Beyond's opening figure is comparable to the latest James Bond movie Spectre's opening figures of $5.3 million. The third installment of the movie is expecting to do between $55-60 million this weekend, far lower than the first two Star Trek reboot movies. Despite the expected softer opening, Paramount has already announced a Star Trek 4 is in development, which will feature Chris Hemsworth as Captain Kirk's father.

Also opening this weekend are Ice Age: Collision Course and the horror movie Light's Out. Ice Age brought in less than $1 million last night, but is expected to do over $20 million by the end of the weekend. Light's Out had a bit of a stronger debut with $1.8 million, which puts it well on the way to recouping its $5 million production budget.

Star Trek Beyond is expected to win the weekend over Ice Age, the new Ghostbusters movie, and The Secret Life of Pets. The Secret Life barely won last weekend over Ghostbusters, with $51 million to Ghostbusters' $48 million.

(via Variety)