Thriller "Eagle Eye" vaulted to the top of box office in North America this weekend, taking in 29.2 million U.S. dollars and posting the fourth-best September opening performance in Hollywood history, preliminary figures showed Sunday.

"Eagle Eye," a conspiracy thriller about the Internet and Big Brother putting everyone's life under surveillance and starring Shia Lebeouf, the "Transformers" star, opened just short of the 30- million-dollar mark, but still scored extremely well for a "summer popcorn" movie released after Labor Day.

Cast members (from L-R) Michael Chiklis, Michelle Monaghan, Shia LaBeouf and Rosario Dawson pose at the premiere of the movie "Eagle Eye" at the Grauman's Chinese theatre in Hollywood, California September 16, 2008. The movie opens in the U.S. on September 26. [Xinhua/Reuters]

The film, a collaboration between DreamWorks and Paramount, had been moved out of the summer season due to congestion there, according to Los Angeles-based box office tracking firm Media By Numbers.

Warner Bros' romantic drama "Nights in Rodanthe," in which Richard Gere and Diane Lane play two strangers who fall in love over a weekend before a hurricane arrives, opened with a solid 13. 6 million dollars in the United States and Canada to comfortably secure the second spot.

Meanwhile, last week's box office leader, Sony's "Lakeview Terrace," slipped to the third place with 7 million dollars in ticket sales over its second weekend in release.

Showing on less than 1,000 screens, faith drama "Fireproof" from Samuel Goldwyn was in fourth with 6.5 million dollars, after scoring highest average opening per screen of any film this year, other than the 3-D Hannah Montana phenomenon last spring.

The Christianity-based morality tale is about a firefighter who resorts to the religion to save his marriage. It was reported that faith-based audience were claiming credit for buying many of the tickets for the film.

Rounding out the top five positions was Cohen brothers' spy comedy "Burn Afer Reading," which took in 6.2 million dollars this weekend and has grossed 45.5 million dollars over three weeks in release.