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Marvel’s Doctor Strange led the North American box office for the second week with $43m, according to studio estimates. That was an especially strong hold for the Benedict Cumberbatch-led superhero blockbuster, which is now nearing $500m globally.

Trolls, a musical animated release from 20th Century Fox with Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake, also held well in its second week with $35.1m, bringing its cumulative domestic total to $94m.

Denis Villeneuve’s science-fiction thriller Arrival, starring Amy Adams, scored the weekend’s top debut with a better-than-expected $24m for Paramount Pictures. Opening in fourth was Universal Pictures’ Almost Christmas, the first holiday-themed release to hit theaters. The family-gathering comedy, starring Danny Glover and Gabrielle Union, debuted with $15.6m.

The weekend box office was up about 47% from last year, according to comScore. The Friday holiday, Veteran’s Day, also helped stoke business. Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore, said the wide variety of releases gave moviegoers plenty of choice for escapism over the post-election weekend.

The good showing for Arrival, which cost $47m to produce, was a welcome relief for Paramount. The studio has endured a string of disappointments, including Ben-Hur and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, with a relatively thin slate of releases.

Paramount paid $20m for the film’s domestic distribution rights. The film, in which a linguist is tasked by the government to communicate with newly arrived aliens, has drawn good reviews.

Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk also made its much awaited debut, albeit on just two screens. The Sony Pictures release, which opens nationwide next week, grossed $120,300 from two theaters (one in New York, one in Los Angeles).

The two locations are the only places in North America the film is screening in Lee’s innovative 120 frames-per-second version (five times the normal rate), in addition to being in 3D and at 4k resolution.

Check out the Nov. 11-13 weekend box office estimates below:

1. Doctor Strange – $43 million
2. Trolls – $35 million
3. Arrival – $24 million
4. Almost Christmas – $15.6 million
5. Hacksaw Ridge – $10.8 million
6. The Accountant – $4.6 million
7. Shut In – $3.7 million
8. Boo! A Madea Halloween – $3.6 million
9. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – $3.3 million
10. Inferno – $3.3 million

This box office news can be discussed here

A strong batch of new films drew audiences to US theaters in large numbers this weekend, including Marvel’s Doctor Strange, the animated Trolls and Mel Gibson’s second world war drama Hacksaw Ridge, waking up a sleepy fall box office. The top three films all received largely positive reviews from critics.

As the superhero in the bunch, Doctor Strange easily dominated with $85m in North American theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a neurosurgeon turned sorcerer, Doctor Strange opened internationally last weekend. It has already grossed $325.4m globally.

It’s the 14th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the 14th to open at No 1. As one of the lesser-known properties, it far surpassed Ant-Man’s $57.2m launch, but fell a little short of Guardians of the Galaxy’s $94.3m debut.

Much of the Doctor Strange business came from premium large format screens and 3D showings, which, according to RealD, made up 47% of the domestic gross.

DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls, a family-friendly musical featuring the voices of Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake, took second place with $45.6m in North America, and $30m internationally. In addition to being one of the first new family films to hit the market in a few weeks, the film had the added benefit of an original hit song from Timberlake, Can’t Stop the Feeling.

And in third place, Hacksaw Ridge, Gibson’s film about the true story of the conscientious objector Desmond Doss’s heroics during the battle of Okinawa, earned $14.8m. The independently financed film cost a reported $40m to make.

Holdovers populated spots four and five. Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween dropped 55% in its third weekend in theaters. It made $7.8m, bringing its total earnings to $65m.

Perry managed to beat out Inferno again, which brought in only $6.3m in weekend two to take fifth place. The Tom Hanks-starrer has grossed $26.1m to date.

In limited release, the likely awards film Loving, about the true story of the couple behind the supreme court decision that invalidated laws against interracial marriage, opened in four theaters to $169,000.

Check out the Nov. 4-6 weekend box office estimates below:

1. Doctor Strange – $85 million
2. Trolls – $45.6 million
3. Hacksaw Ridge – $14.8 million
4. Boo! A Madea Halloween – $7.8 million
5. Inferno – $6.3 million
6. The Accountant – $6 million
7. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – $5.6 million
8. Ouija: Origin of Evil – $4 million
9. The Girl on the Train – $2.8 million
10. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – $2.1 million

This box office news can be discussed here

In a surprise victory at the weekend US box office, Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween toppled another A-lister as Tom Hanks and Ron Howard’s latest Dan Brown adaptation, Inferno, went up in flames.

Perry’s latest movie about a tough-talking grandmother remained No 1 for a second straight week with an estimated $16.7m.

That was enough to scare away the third installment of the Da Vinci Code franchise. According to studio estimates, Inferno bombed with $15m, about half of what more bullish predictions anticipated.

Sony Pictures could take solace in stronger overseas business. In three weeks of international release, the Italy-set film has earned nearly $150m. The studio also stressed that the $75m budget for Inferno was half that of that spent on The Da Vinci Code (2006) or Angels & Demons (2009).

The unexpectedly poor performance of Inferno was yet another example of an anxious trend in the movie business: more of the same isn’t working.

Poorly reviewed and coming seven years after the last Robert Langdon thriller, Inferno arrived long after the Dan Brown craze. Angels & Demons opened with $46.1m in 2009. Efforts to adapt the third book in Brown’s series, The Lost Symbol, were scuttled in favor of Brown’s fourth volume, Inferno.

“Inferno joins the long list of sequels that didn’t measure up to their predecessors this year and in particular this summer when only three of the 14 sequels released outperformed their immediate predecessors at the box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore.

Hanks still has the fall’s biggest hit, Clint Eastwood’s Sully. It has been an especially star-studded season, with competition from Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back ($9.6m in its second week) and Ben Affleck in The Accountant ($8.5m in its third week).

But Perry’s long-running character has fared better than each, at least in North America. The Halloween-themed Boo, released by Lionsgate, has made $52m in 10 days, making it Perry’s biggest hit since Madea Goes to Jail.

Check out the Oct. 28-30 weekend box office estimates below:

1. Boo! A Madea Halloween – $16.7 million
2. Inferno – $15 million
3. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – $9.6 million
4. The Accountant – $8.5 million
5. Ouija: Origin of Evil – $7.1 million
6. The Girl on the Train – $4.3 million
7. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – $3.9 million
8. Keeping Up with the Joneses – $3.4 million
9. Storks – $2.8 million
10. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil – $2.1 million

This box office news can be discussed here

It’s been a spooky weekend in cinemas, as audiences got into the swing of Halloween and crowned Boo! A Madea Halloween king of the Box Office.

The film, which stars Tyler Perry and Bella Thorne and sees Perry take on the role of Grandma Madea for the ninth time, has stormed to the top of the US Box Office, making $27.6 million in its opening week.

Boo! beat out competition from Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. The sequel to the 2012 action hit wasn’t far behind, though – it made $23 million in its first week in theatres, knocking Cruise into second place.

Ouija: Origin of Evil rounded out the top three, in keeping with the scary theme, making just over $14 million in its first week.

The Accountant, starring Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick, dropped from the top spot to No. 4 in its second week, coming just shy of Ouija: Origin of Evil by a mere $35 thousand.

Former No. 1 movies The Girl on the Train and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children came in at No. 5 and No. 6, earning $6 million and $5.6 million respectively.

Kevin Hart: What Now fell from No. 3 to No. 8, taking $4.11 million. Meanwhile kids’ film Storks followed at No. 9 with $4 million, and Deepwater Horizon finished off the top ten, taking $3.62 million.

The top ten in full is as follows:

1. (-) Boo! A Madea Halloween– $27,600,000

2. (-) Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – $23,000,000

3. (-) Ouija: Origin of Evil – $14,060,000

4. (1) The Accountant – $14,025,000

5. (2) The Girl on the Train – $7,270,000

6. (4) Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – $6,000,000

7. (-) Keeping Up with the Joneses – $5,600,000

8. (3) Kevin Hart: What Now? – $4,110,000

9. (6) Storks – $4,085,000

10. (5) Deepwater Horizon – $3,625,000

This box-office news can be discussed here

Ben Affleck’s new thriller The Accountant opened to a chart-topping $24.7m this weekend, according to studio estimates.

Gavin O’Connor directed the R-rated thriller, starring Affleck as an autistic mathematician. The film didn’t play especially well with critics but audiences, who were 58% male and 68% over the age of 35, gave it a promising A CinemaScore.

The weekend’s other new star-driven project, Kevin Hart: What Now? narrowly took second place over last week’s champ, The Girl on the Train. The Kevin Hart concert film, which Universal Pictures distributed, took in $11.98m. The comedian’s 2013 concert film Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain opened to a similar $10m.

In third place, The Girl on the Train netted $11.975m for Universal, bringing its domestic total to $46.6m. With such a minuscule difference, the Universal films could easily switch places when final numbers come in on Monday.

Holdovers Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children and Deepwater Horizon rounded out the top five with $8.9m and $6.4m respectively.

The weekend’s other new opener, the Mattel-inspired Max Steel, bombed with only $2.2m. Open Road distributed the film starring Ben Winchell, which currently has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Check out the Oct. 14-16 weekend estimates below:

1. The Accountant – $24.7 million
2. Kevin Hart: What Now? – $11.98 million
3. The Girl on the Train – $11.97 million
4. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – $8.9 million
5. Deepwater Horizon – $6.4 million
6. Storks – $5.6 million
7. The Magnificent Seven – $5.2 million
8. Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life – $4.2 million
9. Sully – $2.9 million
10. The Birth of a Nation – $2.7 million

This box office news can be discussed here