‘Miss Peregrine’ lifted to top of N. American box office

Los Angeles (AFP) – Tim Burton’s new fantasy tale “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” flew to the top of the North American box office in its opening weekend, earning $28.9 million, industry data showed Monday.

Burton’s latest movie, from 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment, tells the story of a headmistress (Eva Green) at an orphanage in Wales full of odd youngsters with magical powers.

Adapted from the best-selling novel by Ransom Riggs, the film bested Mark Wahlberg’s oil-rig thriller “Deepwater Horizon,” from Lionsgate, which opened to a disappointing $20.2 million, according to industry tracker Exhibitor Relations.

The film directed by Peter Berg and also starring Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Kate Hudson and Gina Rodriguez follows the deadly 2010 Transocean and BP oil rig explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sony and MGM’s “The Magnificent Seven,” a remake of the classic 1960 Western starring Denzel Washington, came third during its second week in theaters with $15.6 million.

Fourth place with $13.5 million went to “Storks,” an animated film from Warner Bros also in its second week. The children’s picture is about the baby-delivering birds who have modernized and now deliver packages for a global internet retail giant.

Fifth-placed “Sully” — another Warner Bros film, based on the real-life story of a pilot who landed his disabled jetliner on New York’s Hudson River — took in $8.3 million, for a total of $105.3 million in the four weeks since its release.

Rounding out the top 10 films were:

“Masterminds” ($6.5 million)

“The Queen of Katwe” ($2.5 million)

“Don’t Breathe” ($2.4 million)

“Bridget Jones’s Baby” ($2.3 million)

“Snowden” ($2 million)