Battle at the Box Office 12/17

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was obviously the big winner at the box office this weekend but it wasn’t quite up to expectations.  The movie made $84.4 million and set a  new December opening weekend ever but it was expected, based on the pedigree of The Lord of the Rings movies, that it would be over $100 million for it’s opening weekend.  It did beat Return of the King’s opening weekend of $73.3 million.  Rise of the Guardians stayed in second place with another $7.4 million but it will probably not break $100 million for it’s total gross and there is no way it will reach it’s budget of $145 million to break even.  Lincoln moved up to third place with $7.2 million while Skyfall dropped from first to fourth with $7 million and Life of Pi rounded out the top 5 with $5.4 million.  Everything else really didn’t move around too much but expect most of the current movies to get pushed far down the list as the crazy flood of Christmas releases comes out starting this Wednesday.