Despite a healthy showing of staying power from the Crawley family, it was a cuddly yeti that managed to scale the heights of the Stateside box office this weekend, as DreamWorks Animation's Abominable took the top spot. The new 'toon earned $20.8 million, according to studio estimates.
That's largely in line with expectations, even if it's a fair chunk below the launches of films such as How To Train Your Dragon, Shrek and others. It's also the latest success for Universal, and becomes the third original movie (all from the studio) to open top of the box office in America.
Plus, given that Downton Abbey hails from the company's Focus Features arm, the adaptation of the show falling to second place isn't exactly disappointing. The Dowager Countess and co. earned $14.5 million in their second weekend, boosting the film's US earnings to $58.5 million (it has made more than $107 million worldwide). Also doing well was Hustlers, as great word of mouth saw it leap back to third from fifth and $11.4 million. It: Chapter Two was fourth on $10.4 million, ahead of Ad Astra, which rounded out the top five with $10.1 million.
Rambo: Last Blood began a swift fall down the charts, dropping three places to sixth on $8.5 million as Judy, which stars Renée Zellweger as Judy Garland. $3 million and seventh place might not sound like the most successful opening, but given that the film is only playing on 461 screens (compared to, say, Abominable on 4,242), it's a win for distributor Roadside Attractions.
Good Boys slipped to eighth with $2 million, The Lion King fell a couple of places to ninth and earned $1.6 million, while Angel Has Fallen was down to 10th, taking home $1.5 million.