Moana, Beasts retain top spots

Amy Adams stars as Louise Banks in Paramount Pictures’ Arrival. It came in third at last weekend’s box office and made about $7.3 million.
Amy Adams stars as Louise Banks in Paramount Pictures’ Arrival. It came in third at last weekend’s box office and made about $7.3 million.

LOS ANGELES -- Following a massive box-office performance over the Thanksgiving holiday, Disney's Moana and Warner Bros.' Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them continued to be the top performers.

In its second weekend, Moana pulled in about $28.3 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters, surpassing analyst expectations of $25 million. The animated picture featuring the voices of Dwayne Johnson and newcomer Auli'i Cravalho has grossed about $120 million domestically.

Fantastic Beasts landed in second place in its third weekend with about $18 million. The movie, starring Eddie Redmayne as a magical zoologist, has collected $183 million domestically and $424.4 million in foreign countries.

Paramount's Arrival took third place in its fourth weekend, with about $7.3 million. The heady drama stars Amy Adams as a linguist recruited to communicate with extraterrestrials who have placed 12 spaceships around the globe. The film has pulled in $73 million domestically.

Allied, also from Paramount, landed in fourth in its second weekend, adding about $7 million for a domestic gross of about $29 million. The WWII drama stars Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard.

Pulling up the rear in fifth place is Disney's Doctor Strange. In its fifth week, the Marvel tale took in about $6.7 million. The trippy film, led by Benedict Cumberbatch, has grossed a total of $634.9 million globally, about $216 million of which was earned domestically.

The only new wide-release offering was the horror movie Incarnate, which opened with about $2.5 million. Analysts expected it to do less than $5 million.

Incarnate stars Aaron Eckhart as an exorcist who confronts a demon that has possessed a boy. Neither audiences nor critics appeared pleased. The film received a C-minus CinemaScore from moviegoers, and only 21 percent of critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a positive rating.

The low-budget film, directed by Brad Peyton (San Andreas) and partly funded by Universal Pictures, is the latest effort from BH Tilt, an experimental label launched by Ouija and The Purge producer Jason Blum.

On the limited-release front, Fox Searchlight released Jackie, the well-reviewed bio-pic in which Natalie Portman portrays first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy's assassination. The film garnered $278,715 from five theaters in New York and Los Angeles for an impressive per-theater average of $56,000.

Returning films dominated a slow weekend as theaters await the new Rogue One: A Star Wars Story from Disney on Dec. 16. This month will also see studios unwrap films they expect to vie for awards.

The Weinstein Co.'s Lion, starring Dev Patel, pulled $120,234 from seven theaters. Its gross to date is $279,382. EuropaCorp's Miss Sloane, starring Jessica Chastain and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, took in $123,036 from four locations. The Casey Affleck drama Manchester by the Sea expanded to 156 theaters, garnering about $2.3 million.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by comScore:

  1. Moana, Disney, $28,270,989, 3,875 locations, $7,296 average, $119,786,319, two weeks.

  2. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Warner Bros., $18,118,111, 3,988 locations, $4,543 average, $183,080,514, three weeks.

  3. Arrival, Paramount, $7,267,029, 2,915 locations, $2,493 average, $73,045,543, four weeks.

  4. Allied, Paramount, $7,026,066, 3,160 locations, $2,223 average, $28,903,498, two weeks.

  5. Doctor Strange, Disney, $6,684,552, 2,935 locations, $2,278 average, $215,507,729, five weeks.

  6. Trolls, 20th Century Fox, $4,688,393, 3,156 locations, $1,486 average, $141,459,838, five weeks.

  7. Hacksaw Ridge, Lionsgate, $3,341,027, 2,494 locations, $1,340 average, $57,205,983, five weeks.

  8. Bad Santa 2, Broad Green Pictures, $3,286,338, 2,945 locations, $1,116 average, $14,287,381, two weeks.

  9. Incarnate, High Top Releasing, $2,534,884, 1,737 locations, $1,459 average, $2,534,884, one week.

  10. Almost Christmas, Universal, $2,532,050, 1,556 locations, $1,627 average, $38,179,200, four weeks.

  11. Manchester by the Sea, Roadside Attractions, $2,276,330, 156 locations, $14,592 average, $4,336,273, three weeks.

  12. The Edge of Seventeen, STX Entertainment, $1,608,183, 1,608 locations, $1,000 average, $12,716,673, three weeks.

  13. Loving, Focus Features, $968,746, 446 locations, $2,172 average, $5,563,912, five weeks.

  14. Moonlight, A24, $845,817, 574 locations, $1,474 average, $9,826,173, seven weeks.

  15. The Accountant, Warner Bros., $748,652, 608 locations, $1,231 average, $84,244,122, eight weeks.

  16. Nocturnal Animals, Focus Features, $700,187, 127 locations, $5,513 average, $2,719,475, three weeks.

  17. Rules Don't Apply, 20th Century Fox, $543,058, 2,386 locations, $228 average, $3,310,713, two weeks.

  18. Believe, Freestyle Releasing, $477,387, 639 locations, $747 average, $477,387, one week.

  19. Bleed for This, Open Road, $295,675, 649 locations, $456 average, $4,847,865, three weeks.

  20. Jackie, Fox Searchlight, $278,715, five locations, $55,743 average, $278,715, one week.

MovieStyle on 12/09/2016

Upcoming Events