Animated comedy "Big Hero 6" proved to have superpowers in the weekend battle for the box office, fighting off sci-fi epic "Interstellar" to claim the top spot, industry estimates showed Sunday.
"Big Hero 6," which features a 14-year-old genius and an inflatable robot called Baymax, opened with a weekend haul of $56.2 million, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
The performance was enough to beat out Christopher Nolan's sweeping space odyssey "Interstellar," in which astronauts travel through a wormhole in search of a new habitable planet. The heavily hyped film came in second with $50 million.
Well behind in third place was the David Fincher thriller "Gone Girl," starring Ben Affleck. The film, which has earned more than $145 million after six weeks in theaters, pulled in another $6.1 million at the North American box office this weekend.
Horror movie "Ouija," down from last week's top spot, took in $6 million for fourth place.
In fifth place, "St. Vincent," a comedy starring Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy and Naomi Watts, earned $5.7 million.
At number six was the Brad Pitt World War II tank drama "Fury," with $5.5 million.
"Nightcrawler," which stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a sleazy videojournalist, slipped to seventh place, down from the number two slot a week earlier. It pulled in $5.3 million.
In eighth place was "John Wick," starring Keanu Reeves as an ex-hitman, which scored $4.1 million in ticket sales.
Ninth was Disney's "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" -- based on a children's book of the same name and starring Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner. It made $3.5 million.
And rounding out the top ten was animated comedy "The Book of Life," featuring the voices of Zoe Saldana and Channing Tatum, with $2.8 million.