Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame led the North American box office for a third week running, but the cuddly creatures of a new Pokemon movie gave the superheroes a run for its money, industry watchers said Sunday.
The mega-blockbuster from Marvel Studios, a Disney subsidiary, took in an estimated $63.1 million for the three-day weekend, industry tracker Exhibitor Relations reported. That brought its domestic total to a whopping $723.5 million.
With a global tally now nearing $2.5 billion, Avengers appears to be on track to pass Avatar ($2.79 billion) as the all-time top grossing film.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros.’ Pokemon: Detective Pikachu took in a healthy $58 million for the weekend’s second spot. Based on a Nintendo video game series and subsequent anime series, Pikachu tells the story of how the fuzzy animated title character (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) teams up with a young boy (a live-action role played by Justice Smith) to seek the boy’s missing father.
Third place went to another new film, The Hustle from United Artists, at $13.5 million. Sony’s psychological thriller The Intruder dropped two spots from last week to fourth place with a take of $6.6 million. And in fifth, also down two spots, was Lionsgate’s odd-couple romantic comedy Long Shot, at $6.1 million.
