Hunger Games holds firm at US box office

Jennifer Lawrence reprises her role as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part One topped the North American box office for a second week in a row over the Thanksgiving weekend.

The latest instalment in the series starring Jennifer Lawrence took $56.9m (£35.9m), according to studio estimates.

Mockingjay took $123m (£79m) in its opening weekend last month.

Animation Penguins of Madagascar debuted in second place with $25.8m (£16.5m).

The spin-off centres on the penguin characters from Dreamworks' Madagascar franchise.

Disney's Big Hero 6 and Christopher Nolan's space adventure Interstellar held on to the third and fourth spots respectively.

Comedy sequel Horrible Bosses 2 debuted at number five. It sees Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day and Jennifer Aniston reprise their roles from the original 2011 film.

The North American box office was down 21% from last year, when Frozen and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ruled the film chart.

"It was a situation where there was no way the box office could live up to the strength of the marketplace a year ago at Thanksgiving," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box office tracker Rentrak.

"We had two unusually strong films at the top last year that completely knocked it out of the park."

Film company Lionsgate, which has split the final Hunger Games book into two parts, will release the final instalment in 2015.

It was announced earlier this month the best-selling franchise would be made into an "immersive" stage show in summer 2016 to bring author Suzanne Collins' writing "to life".