'Hobbit' Takes Over Top Spot at US Box Office

LOS ANGELES, CA: Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” grabbed the top spot at U.S. theaters with $73.7 million, beating previous weekend’s top movie, Disney’s “Frozen.”

Disney’s kids fable “Frozen” held stoutly and melted down to $22.3 million in its 3^rd weekend, increasing its domestic total after 3 weeks to almost $165 million. It effortlessly beat out Lionsgate’s “Tyler Perry’s a Madea Christmas,” which earned $16.2 million, for the 3^rd spot.

Lionsgate’s another movie, “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” pulled in $13.2 million for the 4^th, and is at $357 million locally. To date, “Catching Fire,” grosses hit $739 million, exceeding box office total for “The Hunger Games,” which pulled in almost $700 million. Another Disney’s film, “Thor: The Dark World,” stayed in the top 5 with $2.7 million, raising its domestic total to nearly $200 million.

Regardless of its No.1 spot, “Hobbit” failed to top its prequel’s debut. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” which pulled in $1.07 billion this same weekend last year, with above $710 million of that coming from foreign markets.

“Smaug” would have scored even higher were it not for a severe storm that hit the East Coast on Friday night, keeping lots of fans at their houses.

 ““Of course, it could have been a little better, but the weather back East was really tough last night and probably took a couple million dollars out of my pocket.,” said Dan Fellman, domestic distribution chief at Warner Bros.

Domestically, “Hobbit” sequel reaped the max benefits from premium 3D rates, together with high-frame-rate. 49% of the total gross came from 3D, while all the leading 10 grossing cinemas showed the movie in IMAX, which pulled in $9 million. High quality big format screens contributed twenty-one percent of the overall gross, with 8 % pulled by PLF auditoriums while remaining thirteen percent was brought in by IMAX theatres.

Males accounted for sixty percent of the viewers at the almost four thousand movie theaters and 64 % were above the age of twenty-five. They rated the “Smaug” an “A-minus” CinemaScore.

Jackson created the script with his longtime partners and “Lord of the Rings” co-authors Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens together with Guillermo del Toro, formerly picked to lead the “Hobbit” movies.

Warner Bros., New Line and MGM are expecting moviegoers will most likely make “The Hobbit’ a vacation habit. The 3rd movie, “There and Back Again,” is planned to be out within this very same slot coming year.

The target market, which broke down sixty-seven percent women and was sixty-three percent above the age of 25, rated it an “A-minus”. That, and the movie’s vacation theme, gives hope that it may perform progressively for the next couple of weeks.