'Maze Runner: The Death Cure' has no trouble winning the weekend box office
- Fox's "Maze Runner: The Death Cure" won the weekend box office.
- It was also a strong weekend for Fox's Oscar-nominated movies.
Just in case you haven't been keeping track, we've now hit movie number three in the "Maze Runner" franchise.
20th Century Fox's YA dystopian sci-fi franchise opened "Maze Runner: The Death Cure" this weekend in theaters and won the weekend box office with an estimated $23.5 million, according to boxofficepro.com.
Despite the lowest opening of the three movies in the franchise, all three opened at No. 1 domestically.
That knocked off Sony's "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," which had been atop the domestic box office for weeks.
The actioner led by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Kevin Hart came in second place with $16.4 million. It's now taken in over $338 million in North America, that's third best all-time for a Sony release, passing 2007's "Spider-Man 3" ($336.5 million).
Playing on over 3,700 screens, "The Death Cure" didn't have much competition to worry about. Besides "Jumanji," mostly audiences are catching up on watching the Oscar-nominated titles, as most have finally begun to play in wide release.
But an Oscar contender that was shut out of this year's nominations came in third place this weekend, the Christian Bale Western, "Hostiles," which took in $10.2 million.
"The Death Cure" wasn't the only strong performer for Fox. "The Greatest Showman" ($9.5 million) and "The Post" ($8.85 million) ended in fourth and fifth place, respectively.
And the Oscar nominated titles from Fox Searchlight also performed well as "The Shape of Water" took in $5.7 million and "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" earned $3.6 million. Both were up over 80% in ticket sales (161% for "Shape of Water") compared to last week.