Weekend Box Office Update

This weekend belonged to The Desolation of Smaug, but that doesn't come as much of a surprise. With little in the way of competition, The Hobbit sequel earned $73.6 million in its opening weekend and is off to a strong start. With that being said, it wasn't able to surpass the opening weekend of the first "Hobbit" movie, which earned $84.6 million in its opening weekend.

In second place, Disney's Frozen continues to perform well, adding another $22.1 million to its total. To date, Frozen has earned $164.3 million and should remain strong over the next few weeks. Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas opened this weekend in third place and didn't perform as well as Tyler Perry's recent Madea movies, which have opened as high as $41 million in the past. Still, this movie should have some decent ticket sales over the next few weeks and they are produced on a modest budget. In fourth place, Catching Fire was able to cross the $350 million domestic mark this weekend, while Thor: The Dark World is less than $2 million shy of reaching $200 million in the US.

Next week sees the release of Anchorman: The Legend Continues on Wednesday, with Walking with Dinosaurs opening on Friday. American Hustle and Saving Mr. Banks also expand their theater count significantly on Friday. There aren't any horror movies coming up this month, but Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, Devil's Due, and I, Frankenstein are all coming up in January. Here are the top ten results for this weekend:

1. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - $73,675,000
2. Frozen - $22,184,000
3. Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas - $16,000,000
4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - $13,150,000
5. Thor: The Dark World - $2,700,000
6. Out of the Furnace - $2,320,000
7. Delivery Man - $1,872,000
8. Philomena - $1,756,000
9. The Book Thief - $1,675,000
10. Homefront - $1,637,000