Weekend Box Office: Holiday Leftovers

Despite competition from a bunch of new Christmas releases, December’s biggest hits continue to be holdovers from earlier in the month.

Three-week-old ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug‘ slipped only 5% over the post-Christmas weekend, adding another $29.8 million. To date, the second film in the prequel trilogy has earned $190.3 million domestically. Internationally, it has grossed $423.8 million, for a 17-day worldwide haul north of $614 million.

Disney’s ‘Frozen‘ finished the holiday weekend just $1 million behind ‘The Hobbit’, but up 46% in attendance from the previous weekend. After five weeks on more than 3,000 screens, the animated princess musical has pulled in $248.3 million domestically and $243.5 million internationally, giving it a $491.8 million worldwide run so far.

Even ‘Anchorman 2’ and ‘American Hustle’, both of which have been playing wide for more than ten days now, opened ahead of the many Christmas Day releases. ‘Anchorman 2‘ added another $20.1 million to its $86.3 million run, and ‘American Hustle‘ added another $19.5 million to its $60 million run.

Meanwhile, the brand new Christmas movies don’t show up on the list until the #5 spot.

The Wolf of Wall Street‘ garnered the best opening of the new releases. On 2,537 screens, the Martin Scorsese drama grossed $18.5 million over the three-day weekend and $34.3 million over its first five days. Despite being very R-rated, as well as riddled with drugs and graphic sex, the film is expected hold over well as its awards buzz grows.

Saving Mr. Banks‘ beat Ben Stiller’s feel-good ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty‘, which opened in the #7 spot. From 2,909 locations, ‘Mitty’ earned $13 million over the weekend and $25.5 million over its first five days. Fox believes that it will hold over well due to its PG rating and lack of family-friendly competition (aside from ‘Frozen’, which should start tapering off).

Six-week-old ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire‘, which is just $9 million away from crossing the domestic $400 million mark, beat out Universal’s enormous $200 million flop ‘47 Ronin‘. Keanu Reeves’ PG-13 fantasy action flick only pulled $9.8 million over the weekend and $20.5 million over its first five days. Nevertheless, Universal says not to feel bad for its loss, as 2013 has been a highly successful year and the studio has been accounting for this expected flop throughout the year.

Rounding out the Top 10 was Tyler Perry’s ‘A Madea Christmas‘ with $7.4 million, bringing its 17-day haul up to $43.7 million.

If you’re paying attention to the wide releases, you’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned ‘Grudge Match‘. That’s because it couldn’t even crack the Top 10. The geriatric boxing flick debuted in the #11 spot. $7.3 million came in over the actual weekend and a total of $13.4 million during the full five days.

As bad as ‘Grudge Match’ performed, the new Justin Bieber documentary did even worse. Sure, ‘Believe‘ opened on only 1,037 screens, but that’s no excuse for the awful $2 million debut. The movie’s $1,942 per-screen average is lower than that of any of the 13 films that opened ahead of it.

The weekend’s most notable indie releases grabbed great returns. ‘August: Osage County‘ (which opened on Friday) earned $179,500 from five locations, giving it a $35,900 per-screen average. ‘Lone Survivor‘ (which opened on Christmas Day) grossed $92,500 from just two locations, for a per-screen average of $46,250 and a five-day total of $155,400. Both will expand wide over the next couple weeks.

Top 10:

1. ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ (Warner Bros.) – $29,850,000

2. ‘Frozen’ (Buena Vista) – $28,845,000

3. ‘Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues’ (Paramount) – $20,150,000

4. ‘American Hustle’ (Sony) – $19,550,000

5. ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (Paramount) – $15,510,000

6. ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ (Buena Vista) – $14,021,000

7. ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ (Fox) – $13,000,000

8. ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ (Lionsgate) – $10,200,000

9. ’47 Ronin’ (Universal) – $9,869,000

10. ‘Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas’ (Lionsgate) – $7,400,000

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