On a quiet weekend in movie theaters, Mean Girls repeated atop the box office with $11.7 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, while a handful of awards contenders sought to make an impact ahead of Oscar nominations Tuesday. With a dearth of new releases, the Tina Fey-scripted musical Mean Girls pushed its two-week total past $50 million, along with $16.2 million internationally. So far, it's outpacing the tally for the 2004 original Mean Girls, the AP reports. Only one film debuted in wide release: I.S.S., a modestly budgeted sci-fi thriller starring Ariana DeBose. The film, which speculates what would happen aboard the International Space Station if war broke out between the US and Russia, collected $3 million on 2,518 screens.
Even for January, historically a low ebb for moviegoing, it was a sparsely attended weekend. The top 10 films accounted for just $51.3 million in box office, according to Comscore. Much of the weekend's action was in expanding awards contenders. After a qualifying release in December, Ava DuVernay's Origin, starring Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Caste author Isabel Wilkerson, launched in 125 theaters and pulled in $875,000—a strong start for the acclaimed film. Yorgos Lanthimos' dark fantasy Poor Things, starring Emma Stone, added 820 theaters and grossed $2 million from 1,400 locations. Cord Jefferson's American Fiction, starring Jeffrey Wright as a frustrated novelist, expanded to 850 screens and pulled in $1.8 million.
Below are estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
- Mean Girls, $11.7 million.
- The Beekeeper, $8.5 million.
- Wonka, $6.4 million.
- Anyone But You, $5.4 million.
- Migration, $5.3 million.
- Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, $3.7 million.
- I.S.S., $3 million.
- Night Swim, $2.7 million.
- The Boys in the Boat, $2.5 million.
- Poor Things, $2 million.
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