Christmas is almost upon us, and so the big movies are beginning to roll out in hopes of capturing that Christmas money. And to no one’s surprise, considering that its director has released seven of his last eight movies on this weekend and six of them were in the same franchise, Peter Jackson’s final installment in the Hobbit trilogy won the weekend. The Battle Of The Five Armies made $56.2 million over the weekend and $90.6 million since Wednesday. That’s below the openings of the previous two movies for the three-day period but about on par with their openings for the five-day. Not that it matters much, since the Hobbit movies make bank overseas, but this one looks to do well in America as well.
The final installment in another trilogy, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, opened in second place with $17.3 million, about half of what the previous installment in the franchise opened with. That’s a bit of a misleading statistic, however, since the previous two films had decent legs and ended up with $250 million and $177 million domestically apiece. Though there’s more family movie competition this year, the movie should do well over the holiday. Less certain is the remake of Annie, which opened with a solid $16.3 million in third place, only had a $65 million budget, and could still corner the family market, but unanimously terrible reviews and the crowded marketplace could keep people away over the holiday.
Next weekend brings half a dozen Christmas releases and expansions of Oscar hopefuls, but not, sadly, The Interview.
Source: BoxOfficeMojo
