Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug topped the box office for the second weekend in a row with an estimated $31.5 million as it edged the debuting Will Ferrell comedy Anchorman 2, which brought in $26.8 million.  David O. Russell’s Oscar-contending American Hustle posted the director’s best opening ever and landed in a virtual tie with Disney’s "leggy" cartoon hit Frozen. In spite of somewhat disappointing debuts by Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks and Fox’s Walking With Dinosaurs, the overall box office was up a solid 28.1% from the same weekend last year when Jackson’s first Hobbit film, An Unexpected Journey, topped the charts for the second week in a row.
 
The Desolation of Smaug fell 57%, a very decent hold for a big budget action film (during the busy holiday season films typically manage stronger holds), but domestically Smaug remains 15% behind An Unexpected Journey.  The gap between the two films has actually widened a bit since after the first weekend Smaug trailed by just 13%.  It is clear that Smaug, which received better reviews than An Unexpected Journey, will nevertheless not be able to match the first Hobbit film’s domestic total of $303 million.  
 
Overseas it may be too early to tell, since the movie is yet to open in China, Japan, and other key Asian markets, but Smaug did open higher in many markets (though not in the UK).  It is still early days, but Smaug, which has earned $135.4 million overseas so far has a long way to go to match an Unexpected Journey’s $714 million foreign haul.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): December 20-22, 2013
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug	$31,455,000	3,928	$8,008	$127,500,000	2
2	Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues	$26,776,000	3,507	$7,635	$40,000,000	1
3	Frozen	$19,163,000	3,540	$5,413	$191,555,000	5
4	American Hustle	$19,100,000	2,507	$7,619	$20,200,000	2
5	Saving Mr. Banks	$9,321,000	2,110	$4,418	$9,947,000	2
6	The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	$8,750,000	2,949	$2,967	$371,704,000	5
7	Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas	$8,510,000	2,194	$3,879	$28,280,000	2
8	Walking with Dinosaurs	$7,300,000	3,231	$2,259	$7,300,000	1
9	Dhoom 3	$3,305,000	236	$14,004	$3,305,000	1
10	Thor: The Dark World	$1,328,000	1,116	$1,190	$200,766,000	7

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, the heavily-hyped return of hapless news host Ron Burgundy, debuted on Wednesday and earned an estimated $40 million over five days, and a potent $26.8 million over the three-day weekend.  While that trails the original 2004 Anchorman’s debut total of $28.4 million, the sequel opened on Wednesday, and its five-day $40 million total means that the $50 million production will likely pass the $100 million mark domestically, whereas the first Anchorman topped out at $85.3 million for its domestic run.  Though the studio did not release precise demographic information on Anchorman 2, which earned an "OK" "B" CinemaScore, it did attribute the sequel’s strong 5-day debut to strong attendance by younger males at the "PG-13" comedy.
 
Third place is a virtual tie between Disney’s cartoon musical Frozen, which took in an estimated $19.2 million as it dropped just 15.1% during its fifth weekend of release, and Russell’s American Hustle, which debuted with $19.1 million.  With totals, which are based on estimates of Sunday attendance, so close, don’t be surprised if American Hustle, which stars Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, and Amy Adams, ends up in third when the final precise totals are released on Monday.  American Hustle, which takes place during the Abscam scandals of the late 1970s, has already garnered 7 Golden Globe nominations.  American Hustle earned a solid "B+" Cinemascore and, with all the awards talk, it should manage to hang around theaters for quite a while. 
 
Fifth place went to Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks, which stars Tom Hanks as studio head Walt Disney and chronicles Disney’s attempt to induce author P.L. Travers to allow Disney to make a film of Travers’ Mary Poppins.  This "inside Hollywood" story earned an "A" CinemaScore, and since it appeals primarily to older viewers, it should manage to stay in theaters for a nice long run, in spite of its rather disappointing debut.  Part of the reason that the overall box office was up so much this weekend was the broad selection of films for all sorts of moviegoers, but the downside of having a number of films appealing to mature audience is that some of them will suffer from the competition.
 
Close behind in sixth place was The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which dropped just 36% in its fifth weekend in theaters as it earned $8.7 million and brought its domestic total to $371.7 million.  Catching Fire will not be able to catch Iron Man 3, which will be the highest-grossing film of 2013 with a domestic total of $409 million. Neither will Catching Fire be able to match the $408 million domestic total of the first Hunger Games film, but thanks to stronger foreign sales, Catching Fire has already surpassed the worldwide total of the first film with $765.3 million to the original Hunger Game’s final total of $691.3 million.
 
Fox’s pricey CGI film Walking With Dinosaurs, which cost $80 million to make, opened disappointingly with just $7.3 million here and didn’t do much better overseas where it debuted in 40 markets, but earned just $13.8 million.  Walking With Dinosaurs could benefit with school kids off for the holidays for the next two weeks, but right now it has to stand as December’s number one disappointment.
 
Ninth place went to the Bollywood production Dhoom 3, which earned $3.3 million from just 236 theaters here in the U.S. as it posted the best per-theater average (S14,004) in the top ten.
 
Thor: The Dark World, now in its seventh weekend of release, took the tenth spot with an estimated $1.3 million as it brought its domestic total past the $200 million mark, though the $200.7 million represents just 32% of the film’s worldwide total of $627 million.
 
In limited release the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis earned $1 million from just 148 locations.  It will go wider next week and could gain momentum if it also gains award nominations.
 
Check back next week as another major batch of new films opening including Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, the Meryl Streep/Julia Roberts ensemble drama August: Osage County, Ben Stiller’s remake of James Thurber’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the oft-delayed 47 Ronin starring Keanu Reeves, and Grudge Match, the geriatric fight drama starring Sylvester Stallone and Robert DeNiro, all debut during the final weekend of 2013.