Doctor Strange' Casts Spell on the Box Office

"Doctor Strange" became another box-office superhero for Marvel Studios—and theater owners hungry for a big-ticket debut—collecting a robust $85 million over the weekend in the U.S. and Canada.

The story of Dr. Stephen Strange, a neurosurgeon bestowed with dimension-altering superpowers, isn't as familiar to movie fans as that of Iron Man or Captain America, but star Benedict Cumberbatch and an exhaustive marketing campaign contributed to the strong performance.

The weekend brought more good news for Hollywood, which has been beset by ho-hum returns in recent weeks. The other new releases, "Trolls" and "Hacksaw Ridge," followed "Doctor Strange" in second and third place, respectively, with successful openings of their own.

"Trolls" drew in an estimated $45.6 million in the U.S. and Canada, while "Hacksaw Ridge" collected $14.8 million.

The opening of "Doctor Strange" surpasses those of other single-character origin films from Marvel, including "Ant-Man," "Captain America: The First Avenger" and "Thor." It is the 14th consecutive No. 1 opening from Walt Disney Co.'s Marvel label and cost about $165 million to produce.

The kaleidoscopic special effects of "Doctor Strange" led to strong ticket sales for screenings in IMAX Corp. auditoriums and RealD Inc. 3-D formats. Ticket sales for those pricier screenings increased as the weekend went on, suggesting word-of-mouth helped convince moviegoers "they had to see it this way," said Dave Hollis, Disney's executive vice president of distribution.

"Doctor Strange" has collected an additional $240.4 million from overseas markets. China led the pack with a $44 million opening. The movie continues a record-setting year for Disney, which passed $6 billion at the global box office for the first time in the company's history.

Like "Doctor Strange," "Trolls" had already banked considerable grosses abroad before its North American debut this weekend. It has collected an additional $104 million from overseas markets, a sturdy start for a movie with a $125 million production budget.

The animated musical is inspired by the neon-hued toy dolls of past decades and features the voices of Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake.

The robust performances and separate target audiences of the top two movies put the weekend box office up about 16% from year-earlier weekend, when a similar mash-up of "Spectre" and "The Peanuts Movie" opened. "When you can service different parts of the marketplace, that's when you have a healthy box office. When there's something for everybody," said Chris Aronson, president of domestic distribution at Twentieth Century Fox.

"Trolls" is among the last movies produced by DreamWorks Animations SKG Inc. that will be released by Fox, since the family entertainment studio was purchased earlier this year by Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal for $3.8 billion. Universal Pictures will begin releasing DreamWorks titles in 2018. (Fox's parent company, 21st Century Fox, and News Corp., owner of The Wall Street Journal, share common ownership.)

The weekend's other new release, "Hacksaw Ridge," stars Andrew Garfield as Desmond T. Doss, the World War II pacifist soldier who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving 75 fellow comrades despite refusing to fire a gun.

The movie, which was independently financed for $40 million and picked up for distribution by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., is an unofficial comeback for director Mel Gibson, who was effectively ostracized from Hollywood for much of the past decade for making anti-Semitic and racist remarks.

All three new releases have critical and audience support on their side. Each movie received an "A" grade from opening-weekend audiences, according to market-research firm CinemaScore.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 06, 2016 20:45 ET (01:45 GMT)

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