Disney and Marvel's "Doctor Strange" and Fox and DreamWorks' "Trolls" repeated as the number one and two movies at the North American box office this weekend, while the Amy Adams sci-fi "Arrival" debuted in third place, China's Xinhua news agency reports.

Marvel's latest comic book hero "Doctor Strange" was projected to sell US$43 million in tickets this weekend, dropping only 49 per cent in its second weekend.

That would bring its 10-day revenue to an estimated US$153 million,according to box office tracker comScore.

"Doctor Strange" also added about US$60.2 million globally,bringing its overseas total to US$339.6 million, passing the lifetime international cumes of "Captain America: The First Avenger" (about US$194 million), "Iron Man" (about US$266 million), "Thor" ( about US$268 million), "Iron Man 2" (about US$310 million) and "Ant-Man" (about US$339 million). The worldwide gross of "Doctor Strange" is now just shy of US$500 million.

"Trolls" was on track for US$35 million in sales this weekend,dropping about 24.8 per cent in its second weekend, for a 10-day total of Us$94 million.

"Arrival," the Amy Adams portrayal of a linguistics professor pressed into service to translate for space aliens, opened in third place with US$24 million at 2,317 locations.

First-night moviegoers gave "Arrival" a "B" on CinemaScore and critics rated it a good 93 per cent of recommendation on RottenTomatoes. 52 per cent of the audience was male, and 85 per cent of them was over the age of 25.

"Almost Christmas" debuted in fourth place with US$15.6 million.

Rounding out the 10 most-popular movies this week were "Hacksaw Ridge" (US$10.8 million), "The Accountant" (US$4.6 million), "Shut In" (US$3.7 million), "Tyler Perry's Boo! A Madea Halloween" (3.6 million), "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back"(US$3.3 million) and "Inferno" (US$3.3 million). --BERNAMA