Good Grief! 'Spectre' Tops 'Snoopy' at Weekend Box Office

James Bond beat Snoopy in their box office duel this weekend, as a duo of reworkings from popular, 60-year-old franchises finished 1-2 at the North American ticket windows.

“Spectre” — the 24th James Bond movie produced by Eon Productions — opened with an estimated $73 million in sales this weekend, according to projections from Sony Pictures.

The Bond thriller had opened last weekend in the United Kingdom, and it was on track to be the second-highest Bond movie ever, in terms of opening records. Only “Skyfall,” with its $88.4 million debut three years ago, started better, according to Rentrak‘s Paul Dergarabedian.

In second place, “The Peanuts Movie” was on track for $45 million in opening weekend sales, Fox reported.

The combined opening totals were enough to lift Hollywood out of its fall doldrums.

Third place was held down by “The Martian,” which had a $9.3 million weekend and has grossed $197.1 million over six weeks.

Rounding out the 10 most-popular movies this week, as estimated by the studios, were “Goosebumps” ($7 million), “Bridge Of Spies” ($6 million), “Hotel Transylvania 2″ ($3.6 million), “Burnt” ($3 million), “The Last Witch Hunter” ($2.7 million), “The Intern” ($1.8 million) and “Paranormal Activity” ($1.7 million).

— City News Service