'Doctor Strange' Repeats, Contributing to Disney's Record 2016, as 'Arrival' Debuts with $24M
Disney continued its record-breaking year this weekend as 2016 became the studio's best year at the domestic box office ever. Contributing to that success, of course, is the studio's latest Marvel Studios release, Doctor Strange, which led the weekend box office for the second week in a row, contributing to a weekend in which the top twelve was up 56% compared to the same weekend last year. The weekend's success was a combination of strong holdovers such as Strange and fellow sophomore features Trolls and Hacksaw Ridge, along with newcomers including Arrival and Almost Christmas, all of which helped the top twelve combine for over $150 million.

Dropping only 49% in its second weekend, Disney and Marvel's Doctor Strange delivered an impressive $43 million in its second weekend as the film's domestic gross climbs to over $153 million in just ten days of release. Among Marvel's single-character intro features this is the second fastest title to top $150 million domestically, behind only 2008's Iron Man. Additionally, Strange's 49% second weekend drop is the best second weekend hold among the last ten Marvel Cinematic Universe titles.

Strange also added an estimated $60.2 million internationally bringing its overseas total to $339.6 million, passing the lifetime international cumes of The Incredible Hulk ($129m), Captain America: The First Avenger ($194m), Iron Man ($266m), Thor ($268m), Iron Man 2 ($310m) and Ant-Man ($339m). Overall, Strange's worldwide gross is now just shy of $500 million.

Adding to the success, Disney has now secured its best year on record at the domestic box office with $2.3 billion, surpassing its previous record high of $2.278 billion set in 2015. This is in addition to what is Disney's biggest year ever internationally and globally with titles such as Moana and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story still awaiting release.

In second position, Fox's release of Dreamworks Animation's Trolls dipped just 24.8% in its second weekend for an estimated $35 million. The film's cume now climbs to $94 million, already surpassing Storks and inching closer to The Angry Birds Movie ($107.5m) after just ten days in release.

Arrival is the first of the weekend's new releases on the board, delivering a third place finish, coming in just shy of Mojo's aggressive forecast with an impressive $24 million. The film received a "B" CinemaScore from opening day audiences and the weekend demographic breakdown was 52% male vs 48% female with 85% of the audience coming in over the age of 25. Looking ahead, Arrival could be looking at a domestic run around $80-85 million or perhaps a little higher if all goes well. For Paramount, the film was acquired at the Cannes Film Festival for $20 million while it carries a $47 million production budget.

Sony is handling Arrival's release in Eastern Europe and Latin America where the film opened in 21 markets this weekend, generating an estimated $4.6 million including a #1 release in Russia with an estimated $1.8 million. The film will expand internationally over the coming weeks with dates set in Spain (Nov. 18), Brazil (Nov 24), Germany (Nov 24), France (Dec 7), Italy (Jan 19) and South Korea (Feb 16).

Fourth place belongs to Universal's ensemble holiday comedy Almost Christmas, which brought in an estimated $15.5 million from 2,376 theaters. The film played to an audience that was 56% female vs 44% male, of which 60% were 25 or older. The demographic breakdown was 71% African American, 17% Caucasian and 10% Hispanic. There was some difficulty in projecting this film's opening performance but with this kind of opening, combined with an "A-" CinemaScore, it should continue to play quite well with the holidays just around the corner.

Rounding out the top five is Lionsgate's Hacksaw Ridge with an estimated $10.77 million, just a 29% drop from last weekend as the film's cume now stands at $32.2 million after just ten days in release.

In sixth it was another great weekend for Ben Affleck's The Accountant, dropping just 22% for an estimated $4.57 million as the film's cume now stands at $77.7 million as it continues to shed very few from its audience one week to the next.

In seventh is where we find the last of the weekend's new wide releases, that being EuropaCorp's Shut In, which brought in an estimated $3.7 million from 2,058 theaters.

The last highlight within the top ten is Tyler Perry's Boo! A Madea Halloween, which brought in an estimated $3.55 million bringing its domestic cume to $70.4 million. This makes Boo! Perry's Tyler Perry as a director.

Outside the top ten, Sony debuted Ang Lee's Oscar-hopeful Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk in just two theaters where the film pulled in an estimated $120,300 for a $60,150 per theater average. The film had multiple sellouts, but as it expands into over 1,100 theaters nationwide next weekend it will be contending with a lackluster, 49% critical rating on RottenTomatoes, which may hinder the film's performance outside the New York and Los Angeles corridor.

As for this weekend's expanding titles, A24's Moonlight added 93 theaters (176 in total) and brought in an estimated $1.36 million ($7,732 PTA) in its fourth week in limited release. Focus's Loving is now playing in 46 theaters (+2) and brought in an estimated $532,000 ($11,565 PTA). Next weekend Loving will expand to a total of approximately 100 locations including theaters in Baltimore, Houston, Seattle, St. Louis and Denver.

Additional limited releases included Sony Classics' release of French Foreign Language Oscar submission Elle, which opens in two theaters with an estimated $56,012 ($28,006 PTA); Abramorama opened Disturbing the Peace in two theaters with an estimated $9,798 ($4,899 PTA); Oscilloscope debuted The Love Witch with $23,000 in six theaters ($3,833 PTA); and FilmRise opened National Bird in one theater with an estimated $4,000.

Next weekend sees the release of the highly anticipated Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in over 4,000 theaters; Open Road will debut Bleed for This in ~2,000 theaters; and STX will release The Edge of Seventeen in ~1,800 theaters.

For a look at this weekend's estimated results click here and we'll be updating the charts with weekend actuals on Monday afternoon.

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