Los Angeles: Disney and Marvel's 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' has again led the North American box office, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported on Sunday, but the film's estimated weekend take of just $11.1 million reflected a deep slump in moviegoing.
Hollywood has suffered from a dearth of big new films and the growing popularity of home streaming services. This weekend's top 12 films grossed under $35 million, one of the year's worst totals, analysts said.
In its five weeks out, 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' has now taken in a domestic total of $409.8 million. But that is far from the $700.4 million grossed by the original 2018 film, and "Wakanda" is expected to be knocked off its reigning perch next weekend.
The release December 16 of 20th Century's much anticipated 'Avatar: The Way of Water' "can't come soon enough," said BoxOfficeMojo.com. "Until then, the box office is slowing to a crawl."
In second place this weekend was Universal's action comedy 'Violent Night', at $8.7 million for the Friday-through-Saturday period. David Harbour stars as a sledgehammer-wielding Santa who takes on some bad guys trying to ruin one family's Christmas.
Disney's computer-animated sci-fi film 'Strange World' again placed third, with ticket sales of $3.6 million.
Searchlight's horror-comedy 'The Menu', starring Ralph Fiennes, held at fourth place, taking in $2.7 million.
And in fifth was Sony's 'Devotion', about the friendship of two US fighter pilots during the Korean War, at $2 million.
One weekend bright spot, said Variety.com, was A24's 'The Whale', which in limited release took in $360,000 from just six theaters, the best per-screen average this year. Brendan Fraser, in a prosthetic suit, stars as a 600-pound (270-kilogram) man who tries to reconnect with his daughter.
Rounding out the top 10 were:
'Black Adam' ($1.3 million)
'The Fabelmans' ($1.2 million)
'Met Opera: The Hours' ($791,000)
'I Heard the Bells' ($751,000)
'Spoiler Alert' ($700,000)
