(Bloomberg) -- “Spider-Man: Far From Home” held on to the top spot in theaters this weekend, benefiting from a lack of tough competition and adding to the haul for Sony Pictures’ Marvel superhero.

• The film took in $45.3 million at U.S. and Canadian theaters, researcher Comscore Inc. estimated Sunday in an email, thanks to light competition from two new movies. “Crawl,” a thriller from Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures, opened in third place while “Stuber,” a comedy from Walt Disney Co.’s Fox studio, landed in fourth. Forecasts for “Spider-Man” ranged from $41.7 million to $48.4 million.

Key Insights

• A weekend without a major new family film was a big plus for Sony Corp.’s film division. Spider-Man is the studio’s only A-list superhero, and the movie went into the weekend with $613 million in global ticket sales after just eight days in worldwide release. That put the company’s North American ticket sales ahead 9.1% for the year.
• Competition heats up next weekend when Disney unleashes the live-action remake of “The Lion King.” Despite tepid reviews and a recommendation from just 59% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Pro projects $175 million to $200 million in sales for the debut.
• Theater chains continue to struggle with tough year-over-year comparisons. Box Office Pro said weekend sales for the top 10 films were likely to decline as much as 25% from a year earlier, when a “Hotel Transylvania” sequel and “Skyscraper” led in revenue.

Get More

• See the weekend release schedule here.
• See Box Office Pro’s long-range forecast

To contact the reporter on this story: Hailey Waller in New York at hwaller@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Rob Golum, Kevin Miller

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