After expanding to a wider release, “Hidden Figures” topped the box office on Friday.

Based on the story of an unheralded team of black female mathematicians and engineers working for NASA during the Mercury and Apollo missions, the film grossed $7.6 million toward a projected $20-million weekend.

Already a strong awards contender — Octavia Spencer, one of the film’s co-leads, is up for a Golden Globe for her performance — after opening in 25 theaters on Christmas Day, “Hidden Figures” from 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment expanded to 2,471 locations.

The $25-million dramedy stars Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who, along with colleagues Dorothy Vaughan (Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), helped NASA advance in the Space Race. Their calculations allowed John Glenn to become the first American astronaut to make a complete orbit of the Earth.


The film has been a hit with critics (Times film critic Kenneth Turan called it “a Grade-A Hollywood crowd-pleaser”) as well as audiences, earning a rare A-plus CinemaScore with both male and females in every age group.

Walt Disney Co.’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is expected to top the box office for the third weekend in a row.

The first of the Star Wars standalone films closed 2016 with two straight weekends at No. 1, grossing more than $440 million in the U.S. and Canada.

“Rogue One” took in $6.1 million on Friday and is looking at collecting an additional $24 million this weekend..


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