Fox's "Deadpool" (Xinhuanet file photo)

Fox's "Deadpool" remained in first place at the box office, riding a 55 million U.S. dollars wave in estimated box office sales this weekend, and was the most-popular movie in North America for a second week.

The R-rated superhero movie, a comic book adaptation starring Ryan Reynolds as a foul-mouthed mercenary, saw a sharp 58 percent down from last weekend. But "Deadpool" held up better than Marvel's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" in 2014, which fell 64 percent in its second weekend to gross 32.5 million dollars.

"Deadpool" is an "unexpected performance (by) this most unconventional blockbuster," said comScore industry analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

In second place, the animated "Kung Fu Panda 3" was on track for a 12.5 million dollars weekend. The 3D computer animated sequel from DreamWorks Animation was down a solid 37 percent from last weekend. It has taken in 117.1 million dollars in sales over its four weeks of exhibition so far.

Two spooky new movies split the fear factor demographic and debuted in third and fourth place. Sony's "Risen" scored an estimated 11.8 million dollars along with an "A-" from first-night moviegoers on CinemaScore.

Robert Eggers' period horror feature "The Witch" brought in an estimated 8.6 million dollars with a not-so-promising "C-" CinemaScore.

Rounding out the rest 10 most-popular movies this weekend were "How To Be Single" (8.2 million dollars), "Race" (7.3 million), "Zoolander 2" (5.5 million), "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (3.8 million), "The Revenant" (3.8 million) and "Hail Caesar!" (2.6 million).