At the start of December’s first box office frame, first place went to neither The Hunger Games: Mockingjay–Part 2 nor The Good Dinosaur. Nope, the number one film in North America is a holiday horror-comedy called Krampus: a movie that many people saw as a cult offering at best. Krampus opened with an estimated $6 million from 2,902 locations on Friday, topping the high-end of its original $10-$13 million projection. Horror movies tend to pull in their biggest audiences on Friday, however, so Krampus should wind up falling to third or even fourth on the weekend chart with about $15 million. Even so, Friday’s win qualifies as a surprise gift for distributor Universal.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay–Part 2 is likely to claim its third consecutive box office win this weekend, despite the loss to Krampus on Friday. The final installment in The Hunger Games franchise earned an estimated $5.6 million yesterday, putting it on course for about $20 million in its third weekend. Three straight weekend wins would mirror the box office performance of Mockingjay–Part 1, though the penultimate chapter was about 12% ahead of its follow-up’s domestic total at the same point last year.

The Good Dinosaur took in a reported $3.4 million on its second Friday, indicating a sophomore take of about $16 million. There’s still a chance that Saturday numbers will boost that number, though after last weekend’s debut registered among the lowest in Pixar history, there’s no compelling reason to believe that The Good Dinosaur will pull ahead of Katniss this weekend. The animated feature’s domestic total stands at $63.8 million after ten days: about where I thought it would be after its first five.

After claiming second place Monday –Thursday behind Mockingjay 2, Creed fell to third at the Friday box office. The sixth incarnation of the Rocky franchise earned an estimated $4.6 million yesterday, which should equal at least $15 million for its sophomore frame. That’s the same number that Krampus is now targeting, so it should be interesting to see which film comes out ahead.

We’ll have complete details on the weekend box office tomorrow.