‘Hidden Figures’ keeps orbit at top of box office

‘Hidden Figures’ keeps orbit at top of box office

NEW YORK

Labors of love, one from Martin Scorsese, the other from Ben Affleck, proved costly at a casualty strewn weekend box office where the uplifting NASA drama “Hidden Figures” stayed on top for the second-straight week.

“Hidden Figures,” about African-American mathematicians in the 1960s space race, sold a leading $20.5 million in tickets in North American theaters over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend, according to estimates Sunday. Fox anticipates the film will make $25.3 million when today is included.

The weekend was more remarkable for what didn’t work than what did. Both Affleck’s period gangster thriller “Live by Night” and Scorsese’s Christian epic “Silence” bombed in their wide-release debuts.

Rounding out the top five at the box office were: “La La Land,” $14.5 million, second place; “Sing,” $13.8 million, third; “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” $13.8 million, fourth; and “The Bye Bye Man,” $13.4 million, fifth.

Eddie Long, pastor of megachurch, dies

LITHONIA, GA.

Eddie Long, the flamboyant megachurch pastor whose reputation was tarnished after former congregants accused him of sexual misconduct, has died. He was 63.

Long died Sunday after battling cancer, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., said in a statement to multiple media outlets.

Senior pastor at New Birth Missionary Baptist since 1987, Long oversaw the church’s explosive growth with membership swelling from a modest 300 to 25,000.

Associated Press