Director Peter Jackson led the global box office this weekend with the second part of his popular Hobbit trilogy, The Desolation of Smaug. The film, which features over 2,000 vfx shots delivered by the magicians at Weta Digital, made over $73.7 million in U.S. theaters. Madea Christmas was the number two movie with $22.2 million, while Disney’s Frozen dropped to the number three spot with a $16.6 million in its third weekend ($164.4 million cume and $266 million worldwide).
The Warner Bros. movie is reportedly 13 percent behind the first chapter of The Hobbit trilogy in its first weekend numbers, but the movie faced more tough competition with Frozen and The Hunger Games vying for similar target audience. The major story on the East coast was seen as another reason the film didn’t match the original chapter’s numbers. However, the film has been performing very strongly with an estimated gross of $131.2 million in 49 markets.
Here is how the Top 10 U.S. box office chart shaped up this past weekend:
| 1. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug | Weekend: $73,675,000 | |
| 2. Frozen | Weekend: $22,184,000 | (Cume: $164.3 mil) |
| 3. Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas | Weekend: $16,000,000 | |
| 4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire | Weekend: $13,150,000 | (Cume: $356.9 mil) |
| 5. Thor: The Dark World | Weekend: $2,700,000 | (Cume: $198.1 mil) |
| 6. Out of the Furnace | Weekend: $2,320,000 | (Cume: $9.4 mil) |
| 7. Delivery Man | Weekend: $1,872,000 | (Cume: $27.9 mil) |
| 8. Philomena | Weekend: $1,756,000 | (Cume: $11 mil) |
| 9. The Book Thief | Weekend: $1,675,000 | (Cume: $14.8 mil) |
| 10. Homefront | Weekend: $1,637,000 | (Cume: $18.4 mil) |
