A poster for Terminator: Dark Fate at a bus stop in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, on October 22 Photo: IC

A new Terminator film, Terminator: Dark Fate, led ticket sales at the North American box office with a soft $29 million in its opening weekend.

The science fiction action film with a reported $185 million budget is co-financed by Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, 20th Century Fox and Tencent Pictures, which is the film and television arm of Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Limited.

Tencent's co-financing share is reported to be 10 percent and is handling the distribution, marketing and merchandising of the film in China. It is the first collaboration between Tencent and Skydance since they entered into a partnership, with Tencent making a strategic investment in Skydance.

Directed by Tim Miller and produced by James Cameron, Terminator: Dark Fate is the sixth installment in the Terminator franchise and a direct sequel to 1984's The Terminator and 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton reprise their iconic roles in the film as The Terminator and Sarah Connor from the first two installments directed by Cameron.

The latest film opened as the No.1 global release of the weekend, grossing $124 million worldwide, according to studio figures collected by measurement firm Comscore.

It opened with 198 million yuan ($28.1 million) at the box office in the Chinese mainland over the weekend, according to Chinese film database Maoyan.

Terminator: Dark Fate has a "B+" CinemaScore rating and a 69 percent certified fresh rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Warner Bros' thriller film Joker moved to second place with $13.92 million in its fifth weekend. The film has grossed $299.61 million in North America for a global cume of $934 million through Sunday.

It is already the all-time biggest R-rated film worldwide and considered an Oscar frontrunner in the coming awards season. Based on DC Comics characters, Joker was directed by Todd Phillips and stars Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role. The film follows the devolution of Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill failed stand-up comedian who turns into the killer-clown Joker.

Disney's Maleficent: Mistress of Evil landed in third place with $12.17 million in its third weekend for a North American total of $84.3 million through Sunday.

The fantasy adventure film is a sequel to 2014's Maleficent, inspired by Charles Perrault's original fairy tale and Walt Disney's animated film Sleeping Beauty. Directed by Joachim Ronning with Angelina Jolie returning to portray the title role, the film picks up several years after Maleficent, in which audiences learned of the events that hardened the heart of Disney's most notorious villain and drove her to curse a baby Princess Aurora.

Focus Features' biographical film Harriet opened in fourth place with $12 million. Directed by Kasi Lemmons and starring Cynthia Erivo as the iconic US abolitionist Harriet Tubman, the film tells the tale of Tubman, who escaped slavery and devoted herself to the liberation of other enslaved people.

United Artists Releasing's animated family-friendly comedy The Addams Family finished fifth with $8.5 million in its fourth weekend for a North American total of $85.3 million. The film, directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan, is based on the comics of the same name by Charles Addams.