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‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’ Barely Edges 'The Grinch’ to Remain Box Office Champ

Disney’s ‘Wreck-it Ralph’ sequel holds off Illumination’s Christmas tale to take top spot for third straight week.

Ralph Breaks the Internet.’ Image © 2018 Disney. All Right Reserved.

Holding onto the top spot for the third straight week, Walt Disney Animation Studio’s Ralph Breaks the Internet narrowly beat out Illumination and Universal Pictures’ The Grinch in a relatively quiet pre-holiday weekend, adding another $16.1 million for a total domestic haul of $140.8. With an additional $117 million generated overseas, the Wreck-it Ralph sequel’s worldwide gross stands at $258.7 million since its Thanksgiving release.

By comparison, Wreck-It Ralph earned $189.4 million domestically and $307.9 internationally for a total of $496.5 million globally following its 2012 release.

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In its fifth week of release, The Grinch took in $15.1 million, good enough for second place, bringing its domestic box office cume to $223.4 million. with a total worldwide gross of $325.3 million. The studios’ last feature, Despicable Me 3, generated more than $264 million domestically and $1 billion worldwide when it was released during the summer of 2017.

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Warner’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald held on to fourth place, adding $6.8 million to bring its domestic haul to $145.2 million. With an international cume of $423 million, the second JK Rowling Harry Potter prequel has generated $568.5 at the global box office. The first prequel, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, released in November 2016, took in $234 million domestically, with a global box office take of over $814 million.  

Overall, the North American box office is running almost 10% ahead of where it stood at this point in 2017, quickly approaching $11 billion for the year.

Keywords: Box Office, Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, WDAS, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2, Wreck-It Ralph 2, Wreck-It Ralph, Illumination, Universal, Universal Pictures, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch, The Grinch, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Dr. Seuss, Theodore Geisel, Rich Moore, Phil Johnston, Clark Spencer, Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy, Yarrow Cheney, Scott Mosier, Kevin Smith, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Warner Bros., Warner, JK Rowling, 3D, CGI, CG, cg animation, VFX, visual effects, feature film VFX, Animated Feature Films, feature film animation, Feature Films, Movies, motion pictures, Films

(Box Office numbers obtained via Box Office Mojo.)

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Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.