Walt Disney Co.’s animated fairy tale Frozen took hold of first place on movie charts in the US and Canada for the first weekend of 2014, knocking three-time champion The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug down to the number-three spot.
Second place went to new horror movie Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, a spin-off from the hit low-budget Paranormal Activity franchise.
Frozen, which opened on the eve of the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend in November, collected $20.7 million in ticket sales to claim the weekend box-office crown, ahead of The Marked Ones which earned $18.2 million from Friday through Sunday, according to estimates from Rentrak.
Kristen Bell provides the voice for the lead character in Frozen, the story of a Scandinavian princess on a search for her missing sister, the queen.
The hit film is nearing a $300 million domestic total and has collected $640 million in global ticket sales, making it the highest-grossing Disney Animation release of all-time behind only The Lion King, Disney said.
The Marked Ones introduces new characters and a different story to the hit Paranormal franchise produced by horror film-maker Jason Blum.
The new instalment, designed to appeal specially to Latino moviegoers, features Hispanic actors and some Spanish dialogue in a story about a young man (Andrew Jacobs) in Oxnard, California, who learns he is marked for possession by a demon.
Like its predecessors, the film uses a ‘found footage’ style that captures encounters with invisible forces on camera.
Distributor Paramount Pictures released The Marked Ones this month to give audiences something new after the family fare and adult dramas that crowded theatres around Christmas.
Box-office forecasters had predicted the movie would start with $19 million to $23 million over the weekend. It cost just $5 million to make, a small sum for a Hollywood release.
“Clearly the (inclement) weather was a factor. Everyone took a hit,” said Don Harris, president of domestic theatrical distribution for Paramount, a unit of Viacom Inc.
The first four Paranormal films, each released in October, have pulled in $720.7 million in worldwide ticket sales, according to the Box Office Mojo website. Paranormal Activity 5 is scheduled for release in October.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which took in $16.3 million after three straight weeks at No.1 to fall to third place, is the second instalment in the Hobbit fantasy series and follows the quest of Bilbo Baggins and a band of dwarves as they clash with a fire-breathing dragon.
Rounding out the charts, director Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio in the biographical story of a drug-snorting Wall Street scam artist, took the number-four spot with $13.4 million.
Fifth place went to 1970s crime caper American Hustle. The critically praised film stars Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in a story loosely based on a real-life corruption scandal involving US politicians, and took in $13.2 million.