Disney's "Moana" leads North America box office for three weekends

The animated Disney film "Moana" outran Paramount's "Office Christmas Party" to become the most-popular movie for third straight weekend in North America this Sunday.

"Moana" was projected to deal 18.8 million U.S. dollars in ticket sales in three-day weekend, just ahead of the R-rated "Office Christmas Party" and its 17.5 million dollars debut, according to studio figures gathered by comScore.

"Moana" has sold 145 million dollars in 19 days in the North America market, and as for overseas, the animated film brought in an estimated 23.5 million dollars as its overseas gross grows to 93.8 million dollars for a global cume of 238.8 million dollars.

"Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them," the Harry Potter derivative, was on track for a box office of 10.8 million dollars this weekend and 199.3 million dollars in North America in its 24 days exhibition.

In the fourth place, "Arrival" was poised to deal 5.6 million dollars in admission sales this weekend, for a five-week total of 81.5 million dollars.

And in the fifth place was "Doctor Strange," with a box office of 4.6 million dollars this weekend and 222.4 million dollars over five weeks.

This weekend also saw a couple of major awards season contenders in "Manchester by the Sea". "La La Land" delivers terrific performances along with the strong expansion of Focus' "Nocturnal Animals" as well as the not-so-strong expansion of EuropaCorp's "Miss Sloane". The old-fashioned love story musical "La La Land" opened in just five theaters and sold 855,000 dollars in tickets.

"A mind-blowing, record smashing per theater average of 171,000 dollars," said movie analyst Paul Dergarabedian." If this is any indication of the film's future prospects, then this is just the start of what looks to be an amazing run for director Damien Chazelle's masterpiece, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone." Endi