Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has proven itself to be a box-office juggernaut, but the movie faced some tough competition this week, and was ultimately nudged out of the top spot by Hidden Figures.
The Star Wars stand-alone feature was bumped to second place by Hidden Figures — which tells the true story of the African-American mathematicians who helped NASA launch astronaut John Glenn into orbit in 1962 — by a margin of less than $1 million. While the numbers were down across the board due to a winter storm that crippled many of the southern states in the U.S., people are clearly enamored with both projects, which received positive reviews from professional critics and general audiences alike.
Despite losing the weekend, Rogue One moved up the various box-office charts and inched closer to becoming the highest-grossing film of 2016 domestically.
After sliding into second place for the year last week, Rogue One is now just $9 million away from the $486.2 million that Finding Dory earned over its 25-week run last year. That fact is even more impressive when you consider that Rogue One has only been in theaters four weeks so far.
| # | Title | Weekend | U.S. Total | Worldwide Total |
| 1. | Hidden Figures | $22.8M | $24.7M | $24.7M |
| 2. | Rogue One: A Star Wars Story | $22M | $477.2M | $914.3M |
| 3. | Sing | $19.5M | $213.3M | $356.8M |
| 4. | Underworld: Blood Wars | $13.1M | $13.1M | $55.2M |
| 5. | La La Land | $10M | $51.6M | $85.7M |
| 6. | Passengers | $8.8M | $80.8M | $185.4M |
| 7. | Why Him? | $6.5M | $48.5M | $66.3M |
| 8. | Moana | $6.4M | $225.3M | $450M |
| 9. | Fences | $4.7M | $40.6M | $40.6M |
| 10. | Assassin’s Creed | $3.8 | $49.5M | $99.8M |
The lone new release in the weekend’s top ten movies was Underworld: Blood Wars, the fifth film in the supernatural action franchise led by actress Kate Beckinsale. Like many other movie series of that genre (the Resident Evil films, for example), the Underworld films have typically fared better overseas, and that continues to be the case with Blood Wars, which debuted to just $13.1 million domestically, but added $42 million to that total from screenings outside the United States. While those aren’t big numbers for typical wide releases, Blood Wars only cost $35 million to make, so it’s not all bad news for fans of the series.
Among the rest of the week’s movies, Passengers continued its underwhelming run, but things could change when the film finally opens in China — the world’s second-largest movie market — next weekend.
As is usual for this time of year, next week is another relatively quiet one for new releases. The films debuting in theaters include the weird, family friendly creature feature Monster Trucks, the horror movie The Bye Bye Man, the Jamie Foxx police thriller Sleepless, and the ensemble drama 100 Streets, which features Idris Elba in a leading role.
Updated 1/15/2017 by Rick Marshall with final box-office reports, which gave Hidden Figures the win over Rogue One.
