LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co's animated fairy tale "Frozen" heated up movie box office charts in the United States and Canada, displacing dystopian thriller "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" as the top-earning film.
"Frozen" sold $31.6 million worth of tickets from Friday through Sunday during its second weekend in theaters to top domestic movie charts, while "Catching Fire" earned $27 million, according to studio estimates from Rentrak.
The weekend's only new nationwide release, crime thriller "Out of the Furnace," took third place with $5.3 million.
The 3D "Frozen," inspired by "The Snow Queen" fairytale, features the voice of Kristen Bell as a Scandinavian princess intent on finding her sister, the Queen, who has the power to freeze anything with a touch and accidentally sets off a long winter that is destroying their kingdom.
"Catching Fire," among the year's biggest hits in its third week in release, stars Jennifer Lawrence as heroine Katniss Everdeen, a skilled archer who provides hope for an oppressed society on the edge of rebellion. The film is the second in the "Hunger Games" series based on novels by Suzanne Collins.
"Out of the Furnace" stars Christian Bale and Casey Affleck as brothers in a revenge tale set in a working-class Pennsylvania steel town.
"Catching Fire" was released by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. Privately held Relativity Media distributed "Out of the Furnace."