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

 

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.