Fast & Furious 6 races to top of US box office

The action sequel made $122.2m (£80.7m) over the four-day Memorial weekend. The Hangover Part III took $52m (£34.3m).

With the continued strength of Star Trek: Into Darkness, The Great Gatsby and Iron Man, early estimates suggest it could be a record-breaking weekend.

Box-office tracker Hollywood.com estimates takings will hit $323m.

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This would make it the biggest Memorial weekend box office on record.

Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for Hollywood.com, estimated that four-day revenues this year would be about 15% above Memorial Day weekend in 2011, when The Hangover Part II fetched $103.4m on its debut.

Fox's animated film Epic was another new entry at number four with $34.2m (£22.5m)

Fast & Furious 6 knocked Star Trek: Into Darkness off the top spot.

JJ Abrams's second Star Trek movie was widely expected to make $100m (£66m) on its debut last weekend but the film took $84m (£55.5m).

The sixth Fast & Furious movie stars Vin Diesel as a gang leader who is ordered by a US agent - played by Dwayne Johnson - to stop a team of mercenary drivers causing havoc across 12 countries.

Iron Man 3 enters all-time box office top five

The sequel, which has now made $1.14bn (£760.5m) worldwide, overtook 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon to claim fifth place in the chart.

Avatar and Titanic remain the all-time box-office champs, having both grossed more than $2bn (£1.32bn) worldwide.

Avengers Assemble and the final Harry Potter are ranked third and fourth.

Iron Man 3, which opened in the UK in April and in the US in May, is the fourth film to feature Robert Downey Jr's metal-clad crime-fighter.

The third was 2012's Avengers Assemble, known in the US as The Avengers, whose current worldwide box office tally stands at $1.51bn (£1bn).

Iron Man 3 continues to perform strongly, although it has some way to go before its takings exceed the $1.34bn (£889m) that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 conjured up in 2011.

Once figures have been adjusted for inflation, however, neither title features in the US domestic all-time top 100, which is headed up by Gone With the Wind.