Los Angeles (AFP) - Universal's animated action-comedy "The Bad Guys" again topped the North American box office this weekend, with an estimated take of $16.1 million, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported Sunday.
"Bad Guys," a sort of animal-centric version of "Oceans 11," benefited from a relatively quiet moviegoing weekend, with the next big superhero film -- Disney's "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" -- opening next Friday.
A DreamWorks Animation production, "Bad Guys" has a voice cast including Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Anthony Ramos and Lilly Singh.
Paramount's family-friendly "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" once again placed second for the Friday-through-Sunday period, taking in $11.4 million.
Its four-week domestic total of $160.9 million has surpassed the $148 million of the original "Sonic" -- a rare feat for a pandemic-era film.
Warner Bros.' "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" maintained its third place, taking in $8.3 million.To date it is the lowest grossing of the "Harry Potter" linked films.
Fourth spot again went to "The Northman" from Focus Features, at $6.3 million.The blood-soaked Viking tale stars Alexander Skarsgard.
And in fifth, up one spot from last week, was "Everything Everywhere All at Once," at $5.5 million.Michelle Yeoh stars in the genre-bending film as a beleaguered laundromat owner who is called on to save the world -- or worlds.
"April was another good month at the domestic box office," said David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research, adding that the past two months showed "enormous improvement" over last summer's miserable pandemic-scarred numbers.
Rounding out this weekend's top 10 were:
"The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent ($3.9 million)
"The Lost City" ($3.9 million)
"Memory" ($3.1 million)
"Father Stu" ($2.2 million)
"Morbius" ($1.5 million)