'King of High C's' Remains King of Doc Box Office

Ron Howard's film on Luciano Pavarotti remains number one; Marianne & Leonard off to strong start

Pavarotti continues on a high note at the specialty box office.

Ron Howard's film about legendary Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti - 'the king of the high C's - held on to the top spot among documentaries over the weekend, collecting more than $450,000, according to audience tracker comScore. Pavarotti has now made 2,725,792 in five weeks of release.

Mark Monroe (Icarus, The Cove) wrote the film, his second collaboration with Howard after The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years.

Echo in the Canyon, directed by Andrew Slater, resonated with viewers to the tune of $297,072 over the weekend, landing it in second place. The documentary about the music scene that emerged in the Laurel Canyon section of Hollywood in the 1960s has earned just under $3 million total.

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Related:
>'Laurel Canyon became this heavenly place': Eric Clapton, David Crosby, Michelle Phillips and more remember the time in Echo in the Canyon

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Third place went to The Biggest Little Farm, another breakout hit of the spring and summer. The documentary follows the adventures of director John Chester and his wife Molly as they create an organic farm in California.

"Featuring breathtaking cinematography, captivating animals, and an urgent message to heed Mother Nature’s call," the film's website notes, "The Biggest Little Farm provides us all a vital blueprint for better living and a healthier planet."

The Biggest Little Farm has harvested $3,781,707 in nine weeks of release.

Maiden, the stirring documentary about the first all-woman yachting crew to compete in the dangerous Whitbread Round the World race in 1989-90, took fourth place with a weekend tally of $130,845, comScore reported. The film, directed by Alex Holmes, has earned $207,594 in two weeks of release.

[Alex] Holmes, working with the editor Katie Bryer, uses the archival material smartly, weaving it in to create a sense of you-are-there immediacy and to build the pace as the Maiden sails, stalls and rushes toward the finish.

--From critic Manohla Dargis's New York Times review of  Maiden

Maiden only played on 24 screens over the weekend, but expands to additional locations in the coming days and weeks. Details here.

Maiden and her crew, circa 1990. Photo courtesy Sony Pictures Classics/AP

Fifth place was claimed by Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, a portrait of the Nobel Prize for Literature-winning writer, directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. The film has made $247,368 in three weeks of release.

Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, subject of the documentary "Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am." Photo courtesy Magnolia Pictures

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love debuted in sixth place, but earned the highest per-screen average of any independent film in theatrical release, nonfiction or fiction. Nick Broomfield's documentary about singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and the woman who inspired him, Marianne Ihlen, collected $44,941 total on four screens, for a per-screen average of $11,235.

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Related:
>Director Nick Broomfield on whether Marianne Ihlen should be called Leonard Cohen's 'muse': 'It's a strange kind of 18th century term'

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Marianne Ihlen, photographed by Nick Broomfield, director of "Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love." Courtesy Nick Broomfield/Roadside Attractions

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