Rogue One: A Star Wars Story once again dominated movie theaters, taking in about $96 million across North America over the four-day Christmas weekend and easily fending off a new batch of star-studded movies.
The Star Wars spinoff film, starring Felicity Jones and Diego Luna, has now made a cumulative $523 million globally for Walt Disney Studios after two weeks in theaters, showing no signs of audience fatigue for the Star Wars franchise. It cost roughly $350 million to make and market worldwide.
"The power of the Star Wars brand made it the odds-on favorite to be the No. 1 film on Christmas weekend despite a massive amount of competition," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box-office tracker comScore.
"Mid-December is kind of a magic time to release a big franchise film," Dergarabedian said, noting that the top-grossing films of all time, Avatar and Titanic, also opened in mid-December.
Universal's Sing, an animated musical comedy about the adventures of a singing pig named Rosita (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) and a koala who is in over his head (Matthew McConaughey), came in second with about $55 million in domestic box office.
Columbia's Passengers, a tepidly received sci-fi drama starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt as a pair of lonely passengers on a hurtling spaceship, came in a distant third with about a $23 million take for the holiday weekend. It opened Dec. 21.
Rounding out the top five were Why Him? and Assassin's Creed. Why Him?, a crude comedy starring Bryan Cranston and James Franco, took in $15.5 million in ticket sales for Fox; it was produced for about $38 million. And Assassin's Creed, based on the popular video game, took in about $15 million. It opened Dec. 21. The movie was produced by New Regency and distributed by 20th Century Fox; it cost roughly $125 million to make.
The strong weekend overall took the 2016 total box office to more than $11 billion in sales -- a 2.3 percent increase over the total for 2015.
Also opening over the long holiday weekend: Pedro Almodovar's Julieta, Martin Scorsese's Silence, J.A. Bayona's dark fantasy A Monster Calls, Ben Affleck's Live by Night and the NASA drama Hidden Figures.
Other, smaller films also performed notably.
Paramount's Fences, which opened on Christmas Day, earned $6.6 million and was expected to generate an additional $4.7 million on Monday. The film, directed by and starring Denzel Washington, is based on the play of the same name by the Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson and cost about $20 million to make.
The critically well-received Lionsgate musical La La Land, which had been playing in limited release since early December, expanded to 734 theaters nationwide on Sunday and landed at No. 8 in the three-day weekend's box-office ranking. It earned about $9.2 million for a total domestic box-office gross of $17 million.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Monday (except where noted above), followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Tuesday by comScore:
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Disney, $96,119,405, 4,157 locations, $23,122 average, $318,119,079, two weeks.
Sing, Universal, $54,931,630, 4,022 locations, $13,658 average, $75,544,270, one week.
Passengers, Columbia, $22,685,000, 3,478 locations, $6,522 average, $30,010,201, one week.
Why Him? 20th Century Fox, $15,536,420, 2,917 locations, $5,326 average, $15,536,420, one week.
Assassin's Creed, 20th Century Fox, $14,800,946, 2,970 locations, $4,983 average, $22,293,344, one week.
Moana, Disney, $12,554,860, 2,687 locations, $4,672 average, $185,587,051, five weeks.
Fences, Paramount, $11,300,000, 2,233 locations, $5,195 average, $11,300,000, one week.
La La Land, Lionsgate, $9,242,782, 734 locations, $12,592 average, $17,125,493, three weeks.
Office Christmas Party, Paramount, $7,047,209, 2,441 locations, $2,887 average, $44,086,811, three weeks.
Collateral Beauty, Warner Bros., $6,375,000, 3,028 locations, $2,105 average, $17,376,500, two weeks.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Warner Bros., $4,615,000, 1,966 locations, $2,347 average, $215,920,251, six weeks.
Dangal, UTV Communications, $4,298,016, 331 locations, $12,985 average, $5,132,049, one week.
Manchester by the Sea, Roadside Attractions, $2,761,541, 1,213 locations, $2,277 average, $19,476,657, six weeks.
Jackie, Fox Searchlight, $1,877,917, 348 locations, $5,396 average, $4,189,359, four weeks.
Lion, The Weinstein Co., $1,537,598, 500 locations, $3,075 average, $2,391,031, five weeks.
Arrival, Paramount, $1,523,947, 456 locations, $3,342 average, $89,826,305, seven weeks.
Doctor Strange, Disney, $1,056,741, 538 locations, $1,964 average, $228,675,707, eight weeks.
Hidden Figures, 20th Century Fox, $838,571, 25 locations, $33,543 average, $838,571, one week.
Trolls, 20th Century Fox, $631,553, 499 locations, $1,266 average, $148,897,711, eight weeks.
Hacksaw Ridge, Lionsgate, $492,658, 428 locations, $1,151 average, $63,865,534, eight weeks.
MovieStyle on 12/30/2016