Weekend Box Office: “Hobbit” an expected victor

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" predictably came in first place at the box office this weekend.Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” flooded megaplexes this weekend in a bevy of formats, from 2-D to 3-D to High Frame Rate 3-D to IMAX 3-D to IMAX High Frame Rate 3-D to… ah, you can figure out the other potential permutations on your own. Anyhow, it claimed the top spot at the box office, predictably. There’s not a lot more to say than that, because during the holiday season, opening weekend doesn’t tell us a whole heck of a lot about how successful a run will be. At first glance, $84.8 million doesn’t seem like a great opening for a huge blockbuster with a built-in audience. But when people know that they’ll have vacation days for Christmas and New Year’s, they tend to not run out to the theater right away. The top-grossing film of all time, James Cameron’s “Avatar,” launched to just $77m on the same weekend three years ago. So we’ll have to wait until January to know if “The Hobbit” will be moderately successful or extremely successful.

Outside of “The Hobbit,” very little happened box office-wise. No other film grossed over $10m; runner-up “Rise of the Guardians” took in $7.4m. The only new limited release was “Any Day Now,” starring Alan Cumming, which opened to an underwhelming $41,000 ($2,563 per location). It’s the calm before the holiday storm: over the next 10 days, seven big movies come out. Stay tuned for those.

Check out the full top 10 chart below:

No. Title Weekend Per Theater Average Total
1 “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” $84.8M $20,958 $84.8M
2 “Rise of the Guardians” $7.4M $2,191 $71.4M
3 “Lincoln” $7.2M $3,170 $107.9M
4 “Skyfall” $7.0M $2,394 $272.4M
5 “Life of Pi” $5.4M $2,119 $69.6M
6 “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2″” $5.2M $1,701 $276.9M
7 “Wreck-It Ralph” $3.3M $1,455 $168.8M
8 Playing for Keeps” $3.2M $1,143 $10.8M
9 “Red Dawn” $2.4M $1,064 $40.9M
10 “The Silver Linings Playbook” $2.1M $5,617 $17.0M

Source: Box Office Mojo