Rogue One Makes it Three

The new year at the box office is starting where 2016 left off: with Disney on top, reports the AP. The Star Wars spinoff Rogue One led for the third straight week, taking in an estimated $64.3 million over the four-day New Year's weekend, per studio estimates. Rogue One has further cemented a record year for the Walt Disney Co., which ran up $2.7 billion in domestic ticket sales in 2016 and accounted for more than 25% of the market. Rogue One, which has now grossed about $440 million in North America and nearly $800 million globally, currently slots in as the year's No. 2 movie, following Finding Dory (also from Disney). The weekend pushed the industry to $11.4 billion in ticket sales in 2016, topping the $11.1 billion record in 2015. Hollywood's 2017 is starting out briskly. In its second week, Sing again came in second, with $56.4 million. Passengers, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, came in third with $20.7 million, disappointing for a film that cost north of $100 million to make.

Another Disney title, Moana, came in fourth with $14.3 million in its sixth weekend. Damien Chazelle's La La Land grossed $12.3 million, yet is playing in only 750 theaters. (Wider releases play in 3,000-plus theaters.) Debuting in a handful of theaters was Mike Mills' family drama 20th Century Women, starring Annette Bening, and Jim Jarmusch's poetic Paterson, with Adam Driver. Each drew strong per-theater averages on four screens. They joined a large contingent of films in limited release making awards-qualifying bows before expanding in January. Among them: Martin Scorsese's Christian epic Silence, the grief-filled fantasy A Monster Calls, Peter Berg's Boston Marathon drama Patriot's Day, Ben Affleck's crime thriller Live By Night, and the 1960s NASA tale Hidden Figures (which earned $1.1 million over the weekend in 25 theaters).