Showing plenty of staying power, Disney-Marvel's Thor: Ragnarok is dominating the North American box office with US$56.6 million at 4,080 locations in its second weekend.
The figure gives the third Thor movie the 29th highest second weekend of all time and the fifth best of 2017. It also took in nearly the combined total of the two new titles - Paramount's family comedy Daddy's Home 2, with US$30m from 3,575 sites and Fox's mystery Murder on the Orient Express with US$28.2m at 3,341 venues.
Thor: Ragnarok, starring Chris Hemsworth and directed by Taika Waititi, declined 54 per cent from its US$122.7m opening last weekend and is already the ninth highest US grosser of 2017 with US$211.6m in its first 10 days. It's also been a stellar international performer with $438 million in less than three weeks - topping US$650m (NZ$936.83) worldwide, including more the NZ$4.4m here in Aotearoa-New Zealand.
On November 8, Thor: Ragnarok became the 12th consecutive Marvel Cinematic Universe film to top US$500m worldwide.
The movie has reversed a box office slump that persisted through October and left 2017's overall US moviegoing down 5 per cent from last year at US$9.14 billion as of Sunday. With Warner Bros' Justice League opening next weekend, Disney-Pixar's Coco on November 22 and Star Wars: The Last Jedi launching on December 15, the industry is now poised to end the year on an upbeat note.
"Now it will take the dream team of Justice League, Coco and of course The Last Jedi and a host of other films big and small to rally the industry toward a year end total that could rival last year's record US$11.4 billion," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore. "The clock is ticking and there's not a lot of time left on the calendar to make up the difference."
So have you seen Thor: Ragnarok yet? Tell us what you thought in the comments.
Photo: SUPPLIED. Caption: Rachel House as a particularly Kiwi Topaz in Thor: Ragnarok