Liam Neeson’s The Marksman hit the weekend box office target and dislodged Wonder Woman 1984 from the top slot. Not only did Gal Gadot’s super heroine sequel drop – it slid to number three.

Guess which movie claimed the second berth? The Croods: A New Age, voiced by Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone and Ryan Reynolds, continues its reign as one of the box office success stories of the coronavirus pandemic season. The animated film even increased its earnings from the last weekend by 13 percent, hauling in $2.9 million for an overall domestic total now pegged at $40.15 million.

In Neeson’s return to the box office throne since his Honest Thief last October, the Taken franchise actor solidified his action star status. The Marksman, directed by Robert Lorenz and starring Neeson as a rancher who defends a young Mexican boy fleeing from cartel assassins, took in $3.22 million, with an estimated $3.71 million projected through the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday.

With 65 percent of movie houses shuttered in the United States due to the COVID-19 crisis, The Marksman’s figures were good enough to claim the number one berth.

Wonder Woman 1984 earned $2.6 million to increase the Patty Jenkins-directed film’s domestic tally to $35.8 million.

Tom Hanks’ western, News of the World, captured the fourth slot with $1.05 million. Directed by Paul Greengrass, the film co-starring newcomer Helena Zengel has earned $8.72 million so far in American cineplexes.

Rounding out the top five is Monster Hunter, the latest collaboration of Milla Jovovich and filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson, which took in $920,000 for an overall domestic cumulative take of $9.2 million.

In the overseas box office race, A Little Red Flower again took the top place in China. Director Yan Han’s romantic drama garnered $4.87 million and boosted its cumulative earnings so far to reach $182 million.

Shock Wave 2, the crime thriller sequel directed by Herman Yau and starring Andy Lau, Ching Wan Lau and Ni Ni, placed second with total earnings now reaching $164 million.

Also making it to the China’s box office charts are The Soul, an adaptation of a novel featuring Chang Chen and Janine Chang ($9.6 million), and the Jackie Chan-produced animated film, Wish Dragon, voiced by John Cho, Constance Wu, Jimmy Wong and Natasha Liu Bordizzo ($7.2 million).

As predicted, Soul became Pixar’s third highest-grossing movie in China with a tally so far of $43.1 million.

Elsewhere, the animated film directed by Pete Docter and co-directed by Kemp Powers also performed strongly in Australia, Brazil, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan and UAE. Soul’s international box office earnings have now reached $57.4 million.

Internationally, Wonder Woman 1984 hit the $100 million mark. The Warner Bros. movie earned $5.2 million from over 40 overseas markets for a cumulative take of $105.9 million.

In India, Master, a film topbilling Tamil superstar Vijay and Vijay Sethupathi, and which was expected to help revive that country’s struggling movie exhibition industry, hauled in an estimated $15 million. The movie is the first major local release in India’s theaters since the corona virus pandemic lockdown.

The action thriller directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj also drew impressive box office figures in Singapore, UAE, Singapore and Australia.