Frozen ices competition in box office race

Los Angeles - Walt Disney's animated fairy tale Frozen took hold of first place on movie charts in the United States and Canada, knocking three-time champion The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug to the No. 3 spot for the weekend.

Second place went to new horror movie Paranormal Activity: The Marked One, the latest film from the hit low-budget Paranormal Activity franchise.

Frozen, in its seventh week of release, earned $20.7m to claim the weekend box office crown, ahead of The Marked Ones which earned $18.2m in ticket sales from Friday through Sunday, according to estimates from Rentrak.

Kristen Bell provides the voice for the lead character in Frozen, the story of a Scandinavian princess on a search for her missing sister, the queen.

The Marked Ones introduces new characters outside the Paranormal stories. In the new film, a young man played by Andrew Jacobs learns he is marked for possession by a demon.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which took in $16.3m after three straight weeks at No. 1, is the second installment in the Hobbit fantasy series and follows the quest of Bilbo Baggins and a band of dwarves as they clash with a fire-breathing dragon.