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'Jumanji' repeats at No. 1, topping 'The Post,' 'The Commuter' at box office

Karen Gillan, from left, Dwayne Johnson and Jack Black find dangers in a video-game world in 'Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.'

NEW YORK — Meryl Streep, Liam Neeson, Taraji P. Henson and Paddington Bear and all rushed into movie theaters for Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, but Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle still roared the loudest with an estimated $27 million in ticket sales.

Jumanji easily remained the No. 1 film in North America, despite an onslaught of new challengers, according to studio estimates Sunday. The reboot, starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black, is now approaching $300 million at the box office.

Coming closest was Steven Spielberg's Pentagon Papers drama The Post, starring Streep as The Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham and Tom Hanks as editor Ben Bradlee. The awards-season hopeful is forecast to earn $18.6 million for the weekend and $22.2 million for the four-day holiday.

It's a solid result for The Post in its nationwide expansion following several weeks of limited release. Made for about $50 million and fast-tracked after the election of President Trump, The Post is considered by many a timely commentary on the power of the press, and a rebuke of Trump from some of Hollywood's biggest names.

"It resonates with an older audience because they were around and remember this particular moment in time," says 20th Century Fox distribution chief Chris Aronson. "But it really resonates with a younger audience and that's the segment of the audience that will continue to discover this movie and realize how timely it is."

Strong box office results might help resuscitate the film's Oscar momentum. The movie went home empty-handed at last weekend's Golden Globes and wasn't nominated by the British Academy Film Awards. Oscar nominations voting ended Friday.

Landing in third was the Neeson thriller The Commuter. The modest $13.5 million opening for the film suggested some of the thrill of Neeson's action-movie period, kicked off 10 years ago with the $145 million hit Taken, may be waning.

The sequel to the children's book adaptation Paddington 2 opened with $10.6 million. The film, originally planned for a Christmas holiday release by The Weinstein Co., was sold to Warner Bros. after association with disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was deemed toxic.

The juggled rollout of the movie — plus the breakout success of Jumanji as the go-to family film — may have hurt Paddington 2. Despite rave reviews, it did about half the $19 million debut of its 2015 predecessor.

The R-rated Proud Mary, starring Henson as a hit woman, followed close behind with $10 million. The movie drew poor reviews and even criticism from John Fogerty, who accused the film of exploiting the title to his Creedence Clearwater Revival classic.

The plethora of releases, along with a host of awards contenders in limited release (led by Darkest Hour, with $4.5 million following Gary Oldman's Golden Globe win for best actor) pushed the weekend box office to about $190 million for the four-day holiday frame, according to Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. Albeit shy of the 2015 record MLK weekend when Clint Eastwood's American Sniper opened, it's a strong start for Hollywood's 2018 after an up-and-down 2017.

Most surprising, though, is that the holiday season holdover powering the January box office isn't Star Wars: The Last Jedi but Jumanji. The film has now been the No. 1 film two weeks running after spending its initial two weeks of release trailing The Last Jedi.

"This box office trajectory of Jumanji is somewhat unprecedented and certainly unexpected," says Dergarabedian. "Right now, it's the films that have been out there for a while that are inspiring the most enthusiasm and that's been tough for the newcomers."

Don't weep for The Last Jedi, though: It added $11.3 million in its fifth weekend, ranking it as the sixth-highest grossing film of all time.

"Presumption is always that a Star Wars movie will be the dominant force in the box-office universe pretty much for the entire time it's in the marketplace," Dergarabedian says. "But there is a very strong force with Dwayne Johnson. There are other forces at play here."

Final four-day figures will be released Tuesday.

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