Doctor Strange 2 continues box office rule, extinguishes Firestarter

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness continued to summon magic at the box office for a second weekend in a row.

The second installment to 2016's Doctor Strange is once again the No. 1 movie at the domestic box office. While ticket sales plunged 67% from opening weekend, the sequel earned an additional $61 million, according to Comscore. Ticket drops aside, Doctor Strange 2 still has a formidable $291 million North American total after becoming the second-largest pandemic opening last week. (Spider-Man: No Way Home remains the first.)

Director Keith Thomas' remake of Stephen King's Firestarter, on the other hand, flamed out. The film debuted at No. 4 with $3.8 million. Zac Efron, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, and Sydney Lemmon star in the science-fiction horror centered on a young girl with pyrokinetic powers. Efron portrays a desperate father trying to to hide his daughter's powers from a government agency that wants to harness it as a weapon for mass destruction. It was previously adapted into a 1984 film starring Drew Barrymore.

"It's an iconic Stephen King property," remake producer Jason Blum previously told EW. "It's something I've thought about doing for a long time and we finally got the right mix of folks to make the movie. I'm very proud of it, I'm very excited for people to see it." According to Blum, the adaptation is also approved by King himself. "I showed him the movie and he was happy with it," he said. "He was very generous with his response and his comments and I was very happy about that."

Elsewhere, The Bad Guys continued its box office rule at No. 2. It earned another $6.9 million this week, bringing its total to $66.2 million. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 came in third with an additional $4.5 million and $175.6 million overall. And because the multiverse continues to be so hot right now, Everything Everywhere All At Once rounded out the top five in fifth place, earning an additional $3.3 million and $47.1 million overall.

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