‘Grinch’ Brings Holiday Cheer With Decisive Box-Office Victory

(Bloomberg) -- “The Grinch,” an animated remake featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as the green grouch, stole the weekend at the North American box office.

• The film, the latest take on the 1957 Dr. Seuss children’s book “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” took in $66 million in ticket sales, Comscore Inc. said in an email. The movie was from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment.

Key Takeaways

• The success of “Grinch” suggests it could have legs, especially as Thanksgiving approaches and the Christmas holiday season gets underway. It also revives a franchise for Comcast Corp.’s Universal -- 18 years after Jim Carrey turned a live-action Grinch movie into a hit.
• Though reviews were mixed (“Grinch” had a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 55 percent, just below “fresh”), Cumberbatch’s growing star power was a draw for audiences. The English actor has become a full-fledged movie star thanks to turns in the Avengers and Star Trek movies.
• In winning the weekend, “Grinch” beat Paramount Pictures’ “Overlord,” a zombie film that took in $10.1 million to take third place.
• Coming in fifth place was Sony Pictures’ “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” an attempt to extend that series beyond the original books from late Swedish writer Stieg Larsson -- and turn central character Lisbeth Salander into more of an action hero. It generated $8.01 million.

Get More

See weekend box-office statistics from Box Office Mojo.

See Rotten Tomatoes ratings for top movies.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Turner in Los Angeles at nturner7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Kevin Miller

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