Battle at the Box Office 12/30

The Desolation of Smaug managed to hold off all comers over the Christmas weekend to stay on top for the third week in a row.  The movie only lost 5.3% from last weekend with another $29.9 for the weekend and is close to making over $200 million.  Frozen took second place with $28.8 million and Anchorman 2 dropped to third with $20.2 million.  American Hustle stayed in fourth with $19.6 million and the similarly themed Wolf of Wall St. was the best new debut with $18.5 million, $34.3 for total, down significantly from the other big Leonardo DiCaprio movie from last Christmas, Django Unchained and it was probably hindered a little by it’s 3 hour run time, giving it less screen time to make money.  For the other Christmas releases, they all did fairly poorly.  Walter Mitty came in seventh place with $13 million for the weekend, $25.6 million total, one of the lowest debuts for Ben Stiller, acting and directing wise.  47 Ronin, with a ridiculous $200 million budget, only made $9.9 million for the weekend, $20 for the weekend, making it one of the biggest bombs of the year.  Grudge Match was a shocking bomb, seemingly the perfect family comedy for the Christmas weekend but it only made $7.3 for the weekend and $13.4 million total and it didn’t even make the top 10.  Justin Bieber also bombed horribly with his latest documentary, Believe, that only made $2 million for the weekend and $4.3 million total, nowhere near what Never Say Never made it’s opening weekend.  Things should be slowing down over the next month now that the Christmas movie rush is over.