"Red One" tops North American box office on opening weekend

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Amazon MGM Studios' Christmas film "Red One" took the top spot at the North American box office on its opening weekend with an estimated three-day cume of 34 million U.S. dollars, data from the measurement firm Comscore showed on Sunday.

Directed by Jake Kasdan, the action-comedy film stars Dwayne Johnson as North Pole's head security who teams up with an infamous hacker in a high-stakes adventure to locate a kidnapped Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

The film has earned an approval rating of 33 percent based on 121 reviews to date on the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, and an "A-" on an "A+" to "F" scale from audiences polled by the market research firm CinemaScore.

Overseas, "Red One" generated 14.7 million dollars in 75 markets this weekend. The movie has grossed 50 million dollars internationally since its Nov. 6 debut for a worldwide total of 84 million dollars.

In a distant second place, Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios' superhero film "Venom: The Last Dance" added 7.4 million dollars on its fourth weekend for a North American cume of 127.6 million dollars.

Lionsgate's comedy-drama film "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" earned 5.4 million dollars in third place on its second weekend, pushing its North American total to 20 million dollars through Sunday.