Box office: Raya and the Last Dragon remains No. 1 for third weekend as U.S. theaters start to bounce back

With key theatrical markets in New York and California starting to re-open their doors amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the North American box office is seeing a much-needed boost that's been absent over the last year. Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon took the top domestic spot for the third weekend in a row with $5.2 million — a small 5% dip from last weekend's $5.5 million, Variety reports. In fact, none of the Top 5 box office hitters (almost all of them genre releases) reportedly fell more than 15% compared to the previous weekend, which hopefully signifies that exhibitors are starting to bounce back after many of them went dark in March 2020.

While theaters in Manhattan and Los Angeles are only allowed to operate at limited capacity, Hollywood locations still amounted for 9% of all U.S. sales. After nearly a month in theaters, Raya has made $30 million domestically and $71 million worldwide. The animated feature is also available to stream on Disney+ for a "Premier Access" fee of $29.99.

“This weekend showed solid results from holdovers, demonstrating the revenue generating horsepower of opening the biggest box-office market in North America,” senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Variety. “Eager movie fans in Los Angeles showed up in solid numbers to enjoy the big screen experience once again.”

“It was exactly one year ago that we closed all AMC locations in the United States,” added AMC CEO Adam Aron. “It gives me immense joy to say that by the end of next week we expect that 99% of our U.S. locations will have reopened.”

Warner Bros.' Tom & Jerry took second place with an extra $3.8 million in domestic sales — a 7% drop since last weekend. While it's concurrently streaming on HBO Max until March 28, the film — which blends live-action with animation — has made $33 million in North America and $77.2. million globally.

Lionsgate secured third place with its long-delayed sci-fi adventure, Chaos Walking. The Doug Liam-directed project fell about 14% with an another $1.9 million in North America sales for a domestic total of about $10 million. The movie has surprisingly done less business internationally with $5 million, bringing the worldwide tally to just over $12 million.

And, of course, The Croods: A New Age remained near the top with an additional $620,000 domestically. The prehistoric sequel from DreamWorks Animation now has $55 million in North America and $160 million across the planet. The film has become one of the true theatrical victories of the health crisis, despite the fact that it's been available on PVOD platforms for almost four months.

(SYFY WIRE & DreamWorks Animation are both owned by NBCUniversal)