Battle at the Box Office 12/23

Despite relentless marketing and tons of anticipation, Anchorman 2 failed to unseat The Desolation of Smaug over this past weekend.  Smaug made another $31.4 million over the weekend, putting the movie over $127 million, a little off from where the first movie was in the same time frame.  Anchorman 2 made $40 million for it’s five days out but over the weekend, only made $26.8 million, which is below the original movie’s opening of $28.4 million, although that came out in the summer.  With the amount of marketing and hype, it feels a little disappointing that it wasn’t number one this weekend.  Frozen moved down to third with $19.2 million and is super close to $200 million total.  American Hustle did a great $19.1 million in it’s first weekend of wide release, up from The Fighter’s opening weekend.  Also in wide release was Saving Mr. Banks, rounding out the top 5 but not quite as good for a Tom Hanks starring movie.  It made $9.3 million, which is below Charlie Wilson’s War, which is considered a bomb.  For other new releases, Walking with Dinosaurs bombed with $7.3 million and eighth place.  It probably would have been cool if it had stayed true to the original mini-series but it got turned into a super kiddy, fart joke fest that doesn’t seem to appeal to anyone but really little kids.  With school out, it might pick up but Frozen will still be out as well.  In only 236 theaters, the Bollywood thriller Dhoom 3 had a fantastic $3.3 million and took ninth place.