Americans said good riddance to the garbage year that was 2016 and welcomed in the fresh start of a new year the only way they know how: by changing absolutely nothing about their habits. The surprisingly dark and fairly entertaining Star Wars spin-off Rogue One topped the domestic box office for the third week in a row, bringing in an estimated $49.5 million over the weekend. With $439.7 million in ticket sales in the United States to date, the film is already the 13th highest grossing domestic release without adjustment for inflation. The animated Sing came in at a close second with $42.8 million, while the Chris Pratt / Jennifer Lawrence sci-fi romance Passengers remained in a distant third place with $16.2 million, thereby performing to the expectations of everyone who isn’t an executive directly responsible for signing off on its $110 million budget.
Still, the film hasn’t done as poorly as Assassin’s Creed, which earned a measly $8.6 million to land at No. 8, thereby setting back studio expectations of movies adapted from video games to the exact place where they’ve been for 25 years. But who cares about high-profile failures when there are low-profile successes to discuss? Our pick for the best film of 2016, Manchester By The Sea, cracked the Top 10 this weekend, hitting No. 9 with $4.2 million, bringing it domestic total up to $28.5 million—amazing numbers for a movie whose main character is a janitor who lives in a basement in a Boston suburb and whose major selling point is that it’s about death.
Paterson, another film much liked around these parts, opened in a very limited release this week, averaging a healthy $17,334 per theater, while fellow feted four-screen opener 20th Century Women earned an even better $28,176. Martin Scorsese’s Silence, which is also only playing in four theaters, made $20,750 per screen; the film will expand wide this Friday. The highest average of the weekend, however, went to Hidden Figures, which made $34,329 per screen in its 25 theaters.
Meanwhile, the eminently hummable La La Land has continued to climb as it expanded to a few more theaters this weekend; it earned $9.5 million in the No. 7 spot, bringing it domestic total up to $34.2 million. Another A.V. Club favorite (and the runner-up in our best films poll), Moonlight, is now the longest-lived film currently playing; for its 11th weekend in theaters, it landed at No. 20 with $322,774, bringing it domestic gross to $12.6 million.
Denzel Washington’s August Wilson adaptation Fences climbed up a spot to No. 6, earning $10 million in its third week. In much more baffling news, the misbegotten Collateral Beauty has somehow ended up at No. 10 for the second week in a row, earning $4.2 million from viewers who are either perversely curious or saw the listing in the ticket kiosk as Collateral B and hoped for the best. And though it’s doubtless that anyone not financially invested in the film cares, the James Franco / Bryan Cranston comedy Why Him? fell a spot to No. 5 with $10.6 million this week, just behind Moana, which came in at No. 4 with $11 million.