By Arun Kumar

Washington, June 29 (IANS) Bollywood's new all-star comedy "Double Dhamaal" has opened at number 18 on North American box office charts with a weekend gross of $301,831 despite only playing in 54 theatres across the US States and Canada.

Released by Reliance Big Pictures, the Sanjay Dutt film is only the third Bollywood movie of 2011 to open in the North American Top 20 joining "Yamla Pagla Deewana" starring Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, and Bobby Deol and "Ready" starring Salman Khan which debuted much wider in 80-100 theatres each.

High profile 2011 films such as Aamir Khan's "Dhobi Ghat" as well as Akshay Kumar's "Thank You" and "Patiala House" and even last year's Salman Khan blockbuster "Dabangg" all failed to open in the Top 20 in the North American market, according to boxofficeguru.com.

The Los Angeles Times in its review of "Double Dhamaal" says of the cast and crew "The four hard-working comedians, director Indra Kumar and writer Tushar Hiranandani are awe-inspiring in their sheer stamina and seemingly inexhaustible energy."

"Double Dhamaal" also stars Arshad Warsi, Jaaved Jaaferi, Riteish Deshmukh, Ashish Chowdhry, Mallika Sherawat, and Kangna Ranaut.