The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 has topped the US and Canada box office chart after a slow weekend for North America’s cinemas.
The latest Hunger Games installment took $21.6 million between Friday and Sunday to stay the top draw for a third straight weekend.
Penguins of Madagascar took second place with a second weekend tally of $11.1 million.
Horrible Bosses 2 climbed two places to three.
Its second weekend takings of $8.6 million were not much to shout about in a weekend described as “boring” by box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
The only new entry in this week’s Top 10 was The Pyramid, a horror film about a group of archaeologists exploring a cursed tomb.
The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as code breaker Alan Turing, took in an estimated $402,000 from eight locations.
Reese Witherspoon’s Wild, meanwhile, opened in 21 cinemas on December 3 and made an estimated $630,000 between Friday and Sunday.
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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has passed Iron Man 3 and became the most successful 2013 release at the US and Canadian box office with takings of almost $414 million.
According to online movie tracker Box Office Mojo, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has now taken almost $4 million more than Iron Man 3.
Iron Man 3 remains 2013’s biggest draw worldwide, making $1.2 billion.
It was also 2013’s biggest earner at the end of last year.
Hunger Games: Catching Fire becomes 2013’s most successful release
Since then, however, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has continued to pull in the punters and is now the most profitable film to be released in North America in 2013.
Not since 1968, when Funny Girl was the year’s top earner, has a female-led film topped the chart.
Jennifer Lawrence, who won a Golden Globe on Sunday for American Hustle, plays heroic teenager Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games films, based on Suzanne Collins’ dystopian sci-fi novels.
The first film in the series, released in 2012, made $408 million. The final part of the story, Mockingjay, has been split into two films that will be released in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
Catching Fire made almost $847 million worldwide.
The film was nominated for one Golden Globe at the weekend, for the song Atlas by Coldplay.
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