LOS ANGELES, Jan 26 \u2014 Sci-fi thriller Mercy\u00a0starring Chris Pratt debuted atop the North American box office with US$11 million (RM43.6 million) in ticket sales, ending the five-week reign of Avatar: Fire and Ash,\u00a0industry estimates showed yesterday.<\/p>\n
Pratt plays a man on trial for murdering his wife in the Amazon MGM Studios film, with his fate in the hands of an artificial intelligence judge.<\/p>\n
The brutal winter storm hitting a large swath of the United States cut into the weekend totals, according to David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering the extreme weather that\u2019s closing theatres across two-thirds of the US and keeping people home, it\u2019s a very good opening,\u201d Gross said of Mercy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe final numbers may be lower on Monday after we see the effects of the cold and snow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Avatar: Fire and Ash,\u00a0the third instalment in James Cameron\u2019s blockbuster fantasy series, came in second in the United States and Canada with another US$7 million, Exhibitor Relations said.<\/p>\n
That puts its domestic box office haul at US$378.5 million, with an additional US$1 billion overseas, according to Box Office Mojo.<\/p>\n
Disney\u2019s Oscar-nominated animated film Zootopia 2\u00a0churned along, remaining in third place at US$5.7 million and crossing the US$400 million mark in the US and Canada.<\/p>\n
In fourth place at US$4.2 million was Lionsgate\u2019s The Housemaid,\u00a0an adaptation of Freida McFadden\u2019s best-selling novel about a young woman who is hired by a wealthy couple with dark secrets.<\/p>\n
In fifth place was 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,\u00a0the fourth installment in the zombie horror series, at US$3.6 million.<\/p>\n
Rounding out the top 10 are:<\/p>\n
Marty Supreme\u00a0(US$3.5 million)<\/p>\n
Return to Silent Hill\u00a0(US$3.3 million)<\/p>\n
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring\u00a0(US$2 million in re-release)<\/p>\n
Hamnet\u00a0(US$2 million)<\/p>\n
Primate\u00a0(US$1.6 million) \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES, Jan 26 \u2014 Sci-fi thriller Mercy\u00a0starring Chris Pratt debuted atop the North American box office with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[59774,64,63,14711,134,228422,344,228423,228424,76971],"class_list":["post-438459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-28-years-later-the-bone-temple","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-avatar-fire-and-ash","tag-entertainment","tag-mercy-chris-pratt","tag-movies","tag-north-american-box-office","tag-the-housemaid-freida-mcfadden","tag-zootopia-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}