After three really dull weekends, The north American box office soar on the pre-Christmas weekend thanks in part to three family movies that opens chronologically and as expected 'The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five' leads them by a wide margin.
The final installments of Director Peter Jackson's Hobbit trialogy earned an estimated $56.22 million over the typical Fri-Sun period. While that amount is essentially much lower than the previous Hobbit films, that was very expected since it is the first film in the franchise to open on a Wednesday rather than a Friday. Over the first five days the battle of five armies totaled $90.63 million which is 11 percent below the $102.05 million five-day start of 2002's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and 5 percent ahead of the $86.14 million five-day start of last year's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
The film got an "A-" cinemascore from the audience, while 3D shows represented 49 percent of ticket sales. Going forward Battle of five armies will definitely hold as strong as its previous titles which will result in a $270 million domestic total.
At 3,785 locations, Fox's Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb opens at second place with $17.3 million which is a near 40 percent drop from the first movie's $30.4 million opening from the same weekend of 2006. The second movie which opened on the Memorial Day weekend in 2009 earned $54.2 million.
Overall its a poor result and that wasn't completely unexpected specially considering that the film opens five-and-a-half years latter the second movie which is a really big gap for a family sequel. With a lot of competition around, there's virtually no chance of earning $100 million and now the films fate depending on overseas markets.
Weekend's other new release the remake of 'Annie' earned an estimated $16.3 million which is a very respectable result for a family friendly movie opening around Christmas, by comparison Yogi Bear opened with $16.4 million on the same weekend of 2010 and by the end earned over $101 million. Annie will also hope to held up as well as yogi bear, though that is far from guaranteed since it has to face serious competition from Disney's Into The Woods which is opening on the Christmas day.
