"High School Musical 3: Senior Year" debuted had a dream debut at the box office this weekend and earned a staggering $42 million. The sum is a record for a musical film.

The musical sang and danced its way up the charts and surpassed Lionsgate’s horror sequel "Saw V" which was the weekend’s No.2 as it earned $30.1 million at its debut. There are many Saw fans who waited eagerly for the fifth sequel, but the thousands of teens and their parents packed the cinemas to see their heroes played by Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel and Corbin Bleu, graduate.

“There’s no question there’s a female skew to it and a family skew to it,” Mark Zoradi said, The Associated Press news agency reported.

“The movie is working not only to that core preteen audience, but also aging up a little bit and also bringing in some boys,” he added.

The musical also cashed in $40 million in 19 other countries where it debuted, including Britain, Germany and Spain.

Many industry experts are now wondering whether Disney will release High School Musical 4 and, considering the company’s past actions in similar situations, it would be a surprise if they wouldn’t.

Walt Disney Company was supposed to end Pirates of the Caribbean after the third film, but following the great success of Johnny Depp, the movie producers decided to go for another round and commissioned the actor for the fourth sequel.

The rest of the box office list contains the following films: "Max Payne" with $29,855,620, "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" with $78,110,782 and "Pride and Glory" which debuted with $6,262,396.