Latest "Hunger Games" tops North American box office for third weekend

"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 1" is on track to become the second-highest-grossing movie of the year, as it topped the North American box office for the third consecutive weekend.

Starring Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence, the film, the penultimate chapter of an enormously successful dystopian movie series from Lionsgate, earned an estimated 21.6 million U.S. dollars in its third week of release.

The movie has grossed over 257 million dollars in North America, only a few million dollars shy of replacing "Captain American: The Winter Soldier" as the second-highest-grossing movie in 2014.

So far in 2014, the most commercially successful movie in North America is "Guardians of the Galaxy", which has earned 331 million dollars.

"Penguins of Madagascar", a 3D animated feature from DreamWorks, came the second in the North American box office last weekend, with an estimated gross of 11.1 million dollars.

"Horrible Bosses 2" from Warner Bros. was in the third place with 8.6 million dollars.

Without a single new nationwide release, the box office took an over 50 percent dive from the previous weekend. The top 12 movies on the box-office list earned an estimated 70.4 million dollars, which is essentially tied for the second-worst weekend of the year.

Popular movies in the United States and Canada last weekend also included "Big Hero 6" (8.1 million dollars), "Interstellar" (8 million), "Dumb And Dumber To" (4.2 million), "The Theory Of Everything" (2.7 million), "Gone Girl" (1.5 million), "The Pyramid" (1.4 million) and "Birdman" (1.2 million).