Another box office crown for ‘Coco’

Its third No. 1 on a quiet weekend for movies.

LOS ANGELES – The animated Coco has topped the box office for a third time on a quiet, pre- Star Wars: The Last Jedi weekend in theaters.

Disney estimated Sunday that Pixar’s Day of the Dead-themed hit added $18.3 million, which brings its domestic total to $135.5 million.

The weekend’s sole new wide release was the Morgan Freeman film Just Getting Started, which launched to a meager $3.2 million and barely made the top 10.

Most studios have chosen to avoid competing against Jedi, which is expected to dominate theaters when it opens Friday (theaters will start showing it Thursday night). Thus, most of the charts have looked similar for the past few weeks. DC Films’ Justice League took second with $9.6 million. The sleeper hit Wonder, starring Julia Roberts and Jacob Tremblay, was third with $8.5 million to pass $100 million.

The quiet period before Star Wars has allowed indie and prestige titles to thrive in limited releases and expansions, like James Franco’s The Disaster Artist. The film, about the making of one of the worst films of all time, The Room, expanded to 840 locations and managed $6.4 million for fourth place.

Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age film Lady Bird added 363 locations and placed ninth with $3.5 million. The Guillermo del Toro-directed romantic fantasy The Shape of Water expanded to 41 theaters and earned $1.1 million. Margot Robbie’s Tonya Harding biopic I, Tonya launched in four locations in New York and Los Angeles and brought in a solid $245,600.

The Winston Churchill film Darkest Hour and the summer romance film Call Me By Your Name also continue to thrive in more limited releases.