Weekend Box Office: 'Moana' Wins the Holiday Weekend

Disney's Moana had a strong five-day opening over the Thanksgiving holiday, modestly exceeding expectations and leading the box office through the weekend. The week's other new movies, however, failed to attract audiences, leaving the door open for hold-overs to stay near the front of the pack.

Moana took in $81 million for the five-day holiday, slightly ahead of estimates that had it earning around $75 million. That was enough to make it the second-biggest Thanksgiving movie of all time and keep it well ahead of all the competition for the week.

In second and third places were the two strongest among recent releases, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Marvel's Doctor Strange. Beasts took in $66 million over the five-day period, and Doctor Strange earned $19 million.

Brad Pitt's war drama Allied stumbled into fourth place with $18 million, a bit behind the expectations of a $20-million opening. Worse was the opening of Bad Santa 2, which took in a meager $9 million and fell into eighth place. Even worse was Warren Beatty's drama Rules Don't Apply, which managed to scrape up only $2 million to secure twelfth place.

The top five was rounded out by Arrival, which earned about $16 million over the five-day holiday.