Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug easily topped the weekend box office with an estimated $73.7 million, the fourth best December opening in box office history trailing just Jackson’s first Hobbit film ($84.6 million), I Am Legend ($77.2 million), and Avatar ($77 million). Tyler Perry’s A Medea Christmas opened disappointingly with just $16 million, but strong holdover performances powered the box office to 6% gain over the same weekend last year when the first Hobbit film, An Unexpected Journey, debuted.Smaug’s debut represents a 13% decline from the first Hobbit film. Thursday midnight shows for Smaug were down 32% from An Unexpected Journey, an indication that the fan base was considerably less enthused the second time around. Critics actually prefer the second film (currently 74% positive on Rotten Tomatoes versus 65% for An Unexpected Journey), and audiences gave Smaug a solid "A-" CinemaScore, which means that the film could continue to gain some ground on its predecessor, which earned $303 million domestically a year ago. First weekend crowds for Smaug skewed heavily male (60%), which could indicate a limited appeal to females in spite of Jackson and Company’s addition of a number of female characters to Tolkien’s nearly all-male saga. Don’t be surprised if Smaug comes up a little short on the domestic side, but more than makes up for it with higher foreign grosses.
Disney’s Frozen continues to do well, dropping just 29.8% in its fourth weekend as it earned an estimated $22.2 million to bring its domestic total to $164.4 million. The $150 million production needs to do well overseas where its rollout has been measured, though it added $31.5 million this weekend to bring its current worldwide total to $266 million.
| Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): December 13-15, 2013 | ||||||
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| Film | Weekend Gross | Screens | Avg./ Screen | Total Gross | Wk# |
| 1 | The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug | $73,675,000 | 3,903 | $18,877 | $73,675,000 | 1 |
| 2 | Frozen | $22,184,000 | 3,716 | $5,970 | $164,388,000 | 4 |
| 3 | Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas | $16,000,000 | 2,194 | $7,293 | $16,000,000 | 1 |
| 4 | The Hunger Games: Catching Fire | $13,150,000 | 3,563 | $3,691 | $356,982,000 | 4 |
| 5 | Thor: The Dark World | $2,700,000 | 2,264 | $1,193 | $198,125,000 | 6 |
| 6 | Out of the Furnace | $2,320,000 | 2,101 | $1,104 | $9,468,000 | 2 |
| 7 | Delivery Man | $1,872,000 | 2,041 | $917 | $27,995,000 | 4 |
| 8 | Philomena | $1,756,000 | 835 | $2,103 | $11,019,000 | 4 |
| 9 | The Book Thief | $1,675,000 | 1,158 | $1,446 | $14,877,000 | 6 |
| 10 | Homefront | $1,637,000 | 2,103 | $778 | $18,438,000 | 3 |
Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas posted the lowest opening total of any of the writer/director/actor’s seven previous Madea movies, but it received a solid “A-“ CinemaScore and should do solid business through the upcoming holidays.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire slipped just 49.8% in its fourth weekend in theaters as it brought in $13.1 million and drove its domestic total to nearly $357 million. It earned even more overseas ($19.5 million) driving its worldwide total to $739.9 million, already ahead of the final total of the first Hunger Games film.
Fifth place went to Thor: The Dark World, which added just $2.7 million to its total as it brought its domestic total to $198.1 million. It will surpass the $200 million mark this week, but won’t likely earn much more here in North America. Fortunately for Marvel Studios and Disney the second stand-alone Thor film has earned 68% of its worldwide total of $619.9 million overseas.
David O. Russell’s American Hustle earned $690,000 from just six locations. It will go to 2,500 theaters next week, and is certainly a film to keep an eye on next weekend along with Will Ferrell’s Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (can a "cult hit" comedy find mainstream success in a sequel?), and the Tom Hanks-starring Saving Mr. Banks.
