“Wonka”: How much did the new movie gross in its first weekend in theaters?

The musical “Wonka”from studio Warner Bros., enjoyed a sweet opening in North American theaters this weekend after an equally strong debut abroad, industry observers reported Sunday.

The film grossed approximately $39 million in the United States and Canada between Friday and Sunday, according to provisional figures from Exhibitor Relations.

That sum is added to the $112 million in tickets sold abroad, where “Wonka” premiered a week earlier. These are “excellent” data, commented analyst David A. Gross.

It is a prequel, with actor Timothée Chalamet playing a younger version of the famous chocolatier Willy Wonka, a character played first by Gene Wilder and then by Johnny Depp.

The film also stars Olivia Colman, Keegan-Michael Key, Sally Hawkins and, in his first appearance as Oompa-Loompa, Hugh Grant.

Another prequel, Lionsgate’s “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” took second place over the weekend with $5.8 million, showing impressive staying power in its fifth week of release. Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler and Peter Dinklage star in this story about the tenth Hunger Games in the dystopian state of Panem.

In third place was the animated fantasy “The Boy and the Heron,” from Studio Ghibli, with $5.2 million.

This Japanese film evokes the story of Mahito, an 11-year-old boy who, during World War II, communicates with a talking gray heron after his mother dies in a fire.

The story of famous Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki topped the North American box office last weekend, becoming the first original anime production to do so.

In fourth place was another Japanese production, the action and science fiction film “Godzilla Minus One”, directed by Takashi Yamazaki and produced by Toho International, with 4.9 million dollars.

It was followed by “Trolls Band Together,” from Universal and DreamWorks, with $4 million in its fifth week.

Next week should be a big one for North American movie theaters, with “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” opening Friday and the new musical version of “The Color Purple” beginning Christmas Day.

The list of the ten highest-grossing films was completed by:

• “Wish” ($3.2 million)
• “Christmas With the Chosen: Holy Night” (3 million)
• “Napoleon” (2.2 million)
• “Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce” (2 million)
• “Poor creatures” (1.3 million)

With information from AFP