The cave diving adventure held its head high among the overseas studio titans at the weekend and grossed an estimated $9.1m to boost the running total to $37.5m.

New York-based FilmNation licensed territories and said it expected the latest tally from 2,028 screens would most likely climb to $40m after CIS, Portugal, the Middle East, Colombia and Chile reported.

The film opened well in Hong Kong on $1.3m from 36 screens including three days of previews and launched in second place in Sweden on $558,000 from 72.

In a pair of notable second weekend results Sanctum added $973,000 in Italy from 330 for $3.4m and $1.1m in Spain from 282 for $3.2m.

Australia produced a further $375,000 in the third weekend from 193 to rank 11th on $3.6m and Brazil’s tally leapt by $407,000 from 116 to $4.9m. The UK has generated $3.1m.

Sanctum is scheduled to open this week in France, Mexico, Taiwan and Denmark.