‘Mean Girls’ fetches top spot at North American box office

THE Plastics rule North Shore High once again in Paramount’s musical remake of Mean Girls, which was most popular at the North American box office for the second weekend in a row, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported on Sunday (Jan 21).

The tale of high school survival starring Angourie Rice, Renee Rapp, Auli’i Cravalho, Avantika and Bebe Wood topped the box office with an estimated weekend take of US$11.7 million.

Tina Fey, the writer behind this and the 2004 original, plays maths teacher Ms Norbury, in a cameo-studded film featuring drop-ins by original lead Lindsay Lohan, as well as Ashley Park, who played Gretchen Wieners in the Broadway musical.

With no major new releases to shake things up in the Friday-through-Sunday period, the order of the top five films remained unchanged from the prior weekend. Hollywood is hoping for a boost from Tuesday’s announcement of Oscar nominations.

In second place was Amazon and MGM’s action picture The Beekeeper, at US$8.5 million. Jason Statham stars as a former commando seeking vengeance against a criminal group, whose cruel scams lead to the suicide of an elderly woman – a friend of his – played by Phylicia Rashad.

Hanging tight in third in its sixth week out was Warner Bros’ Wonka, at US$6.4 million. The fantasy musical, starring Timothee Chalamet as the eccentric chocolate maker, has taken in US$187.2 million in North America and US$344 million internationally.

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Sony rom-com Anyone But You placed fourth at US$5.4 million. A sleeper hit, the film has just passed the US$100 million mark globally, making it the highest-grossing R-rated comedy since Bridget Jones’s Baby in 2016, according to Hollywood Reporter. Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell play two people who meet and instantly connect before being tripped up by a series of crossed signals.

And in fifth was Migration, a family-friendly animation from Universal and Illumination about a goofy family of mallard ducks flying from New England to Jamaica, at US$5.3 million.

Rounding out the top 10 were:

• Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (US$3.7 million);
• ISS (US$3 million);
• Night Swim (US$2.7 million);
• The Boys in the Boat (US$2.5 million); and
• Poor Things (US$2 million).