For the third consecutive week, ‘The Hunger Games’ took the top spot at the box office. That was to be expected. What wasn’t expected was that a PG-13 Christmas horror tale came close to defeating Katniss.

While ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2‘ only slipped a mild 50% in its second week, it took a major plunge in its third week. Dropping 64%, the finale added $18.6 million this weekend. There’s no denying that the film’s 17-day $227.1 million domestic and $296.8 million international totals prove this to be another huge win for Lionsgate, but compared to the previous three ‘Hunger Games’ movies, ‘Mockingjay, Part 2’ is a letdown. At this point, ‘Mockingjay, Part 1‘ had domestically grossed upwards of $30 million more and ‘Catching Fire‘ was up more than $100 million. ‘The Hunger Games’ has come to a successful close, but it lost a large chunk of viewership along the way. This is likely to be the last weekend that ‘Mockingjay, Part 2’ finishes in the #1 spot.

Although it couldn’t extinguish The Girl on Fire, to the surprise of many, ‘Krampus‘ came close. From 2,902 screens, the scary Christmas flick grossed $16 million and finished in second place. The film’s per-screen average ($5,520) was actually the highest of all the Top 10 movies. With a production budget of $15 million, ‘Krampus’ is a success already on its way to profitability.

With a 47% drop from last week’s huge Thanksgiving debut, ‘Creed‘ held onto the #3 spot and won $15.5 million. Its domestic 12-day total sits at $65.1 million.

Pixar’s ‘The Good Dinosaur‘ finished in fourth place, but took a massive second-week decline. Most kids’ movies drop a mild 30% to 40% over their sophomore weeks, but ‘The Good Dinosaur’ tanked more than 60%. That’s the largest decline for a Pixar title to date. After 12 days, it has earned $75.9 million in North America.

In its fifth week, 007’s latest outing dropped 58% and rounded out the Top 5. The $5.4 million weekend isn’t too bad – that is, if you don’t look at the per-screen average. Still playing on more than 2,800 screens, ‘Spectre‘ only nabbed $1,910 from each location.

Of the specialty releases, Spike Lee’s latest picture did the best. From 305 locations, ‘Chi-Raq‘ drew $1.2 million and a healthy per-screen average of $4,099. The film’s performance is worlds better than Lee’s last joint, ‘Oldboy‘, which only opened to a per-screen average of $1,519.

Freestyle Releasing’s religious drama, ‘The Letters‘, debuted enough screens to be classified as a nationwide release, but crashed and burned upon takeoff. The Mother Teresa bio-pic earned $802,000 from 886 locations, giving it a brutally low $905 per-screen average.

Two other limited awards hopefuls opened strongly. From four locations, Fox Searchlight’s ‘Youth‘ debuted to $80,000 and a very healthy per-screen average of $20,000. Although it didn’t do quite as much business, the Weinstein Company’s ‘Macbeth‘ scored $67,868 and a per-screen average of $13,574.

Opening numbers have yet to be announced for ‘Life’, ‘MI-5’ or ‘Christmas Eve’.

Top 10:

1. ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2’ (Lionsgate) – $18,600,000

2. ‘Krampus’ (Universal) – $16,020,000

3. ‘Creed’ (Warner Bros.) – $15,540,000

4. ‘The Good Dinosaur’ (Buena Vista) – $15,512,000

5. ‘Spectre’ (Sony) – $5,425,000

6. ‘The Night Before’ (Sony) – $4,920,000

7. ‘The Peanuts Movie’ (Fox) – $3,525,000

8. ‘Spotlight’ (Open Road) – $2,926,000

9. ‘Brooklyn’ (Fox Searchlight) – $2,430,000

10. ‘The Secret in their Eyes’ (STX) – $1,950,000