Doc box office: anti-Hillary Clinton film bumped from top spot

Werner Herzog's latest, Lo and Behold, debuts in top five

Welcome news for Hillary Clinton. The documentary attacking her that's spent weeks at number one, has finally slipped from the top spot.

Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party directed by conservative author and pundit Dinesh D'Souza came in second at the box office this past week, according to audience measurement firm Rentrak. It finished behind A Beautiful Planet, the IMAX film narrated by Jennifer Lawrence, after locking up the top spot for a month.

With the second place finish Hillary's America pushed its total earnings to $12,340,636, Rentrak reported -- far and away the highest total for any nonfiction film this year.

A Beautiful Planet upped its gross to $5,424,485 after 17 weeks of release. Given the long life of IMAX nonfiction films, many of which play at museums, the film is likely to continue steady earnings for months.

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Werner Herzog's new documentary, Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World, came in third in its debut weekend, earning a solid $114,273 on 39 screens.

The film traces the Internet from its origins to its expansion into the lives of virtually everyone on the planet. The film's website says, "Herzog leads viewers on a journey through a series of provocative conversations that reveal the ways in which the online world has transformed how virtually everything in the real world works - from business to education, space travel to healthcare, and the very heart of how we conduct our personal relationships."

The film debuted at Sundance, where the director attended a news conference to discuss his film. On that occasion he did not speak highly of some aspects of the worldwide web: "I’m not on any social media. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter or anything, What scares me the most? Stupidity. It manifests itself very, very clearly [on the internet]. You just go into chatrooms or you look into the comments that are coming out in the social media. So it’s this massive, naked onslaught of stupidity. But stupidity is not a phenomenon of the Internet. It’s all pervasive anyway. It only becomes more visible."

Rounding out the top five at the box office were Gleason, the film about former NFL player Steve Gleason and his battle with ALS, and Eat That Question, the documentary about the late musician Frank Zappa. 

Gleason has grossed a total of $545,819, per Rentrak. Eat That Question is up to $318,770.

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