LOS ANGELES — Sony’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is dominating the North American box office to easily win the four-day Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend with about $33.4 million at 3,849 sites, estimates showed Sunday.

Fox’s The Post is leading the rest of the pack handily and topped forecasts with $22.2 million at 2,819 locations for Friday-Monday after expanding from 36 sites. The opening of Lionsgate’s Liam Neeson thriller The Commuter also topped expectations in third place with $16 million at 2,892 venues.

The fifth weekend of Disney-Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi with $14.7 million at 3,090 sites is fourth and Fox’s fourth weekend of The Greatest Showman with $14.5 million at 2,938 screens takes fifth place at the holiday box office.

Warner Bros.’ launch of family comedy Paddington 2 was battling for sixth place with Universal’s second weekend of Insidious: The Last Chapter with about $14.1 million each.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which will finish the holiday with nearly $290 million in 29 days, now ranks as the eighth highest grosser released in 2017.

“Jumanji has in essence hit the reset button and is now behaving more like a film in its second weekend rather than its fourth,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with comScore. “In the wake of a startling late run ascension to the number one spot, Jumanji continues to energize the early 2018 box-office marketplace while this weekend taking on a host of wide release newcomers.”

Disney noted Sunday that Star Wars: The Last Jedi had reached a worldwide total of $1.264 billion, topping Disney’s Beauty and the Beast ($1.263 billion) and Universal’s The Fate of the Furious ($1.236 billion) to become the top global release of 2017 and the tenth-highest global release of all time.

Jumanji, starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, provided the most substantive challenge to The Last Jedi after opening Dec. 20. It’s the most successful title for Sony since Spider-Man: Homecoming, which pulled in $337 million domestically during the summer.

The Post, starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep in a story about the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers, attracted an older audience. The Post took in $4.3 million in two weeks of limited release, so its domestic total has hit $26.7 million. The National Board of Review named The Post the best film of 2017 with Hanks and Streep winning the acting awards and the Producers Guild nominated it as one of its top 11 films but it was denied nominations last week from the Directors Guild and Writers Guild. The Post has an 88% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Commuter, starring Neeson as a businessman drawn into a criminal conspiracy on his train ride home. The film finished Friday with around $4.6 million, and has received a B CinemaScore and a 55% Rotten Tomatoes rating. The film kicks off a long-term partnership between Lionsgate and StudioCanal that will continue with Early Man and Shaun the Sheep Movie 2.

Paddington 2 was coming in slightly under expectations. Warner Bros. acquired the North American rights for the sequel film, starring the popular British children’s literary character, from the Weinstein Company in November after the sexual harassment allegations against former head Harvey Weinstein left the production company and distributor a toxic name.

Paddington 2, in which Ben Whishaw voices the accident-prone bear, has already earned $125 million internationally and has garnered a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Rounding out the top 10 were: Insidious: The Last Key ($14.2 million); Proud Mary (12 million); Pitch Perfect 3 ($6.8 million); and, Darkest Hour ($5.2 million). — Reuters/AFP

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