The Hobbit Beats Out Anchorman 2 At The US Box Office

With a lot of films battling it out at the US box office, it wasn’t clear going into the weekend which would end up on top. In the end The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug took the number one spot, with $31.4 million.

That means it beat out the hotly tipped Anchorman 2, which came second with $26.6 million over the weekend and $40 million since it opened last Wednesday. Although not the mega-hit some had thought it might be, it’s still a pretty okay start and it should continue to have decent play of the Christmas period.

After expanding their screen count massively, both American Hustle and Saving Mr. Banks made their first appearance in the top 10 in fourth and fifth spot, with $19.1 million and $9.3 million respectively. It means that Hustle is playing ahead of expectations, which is likely to help its Oscar chances, while Saving Mr. Banks is probably going to need a few awards nods if it’s going to turn into a significant US hit.

Walking With Dinosaurs failed to attract much of an audience, earning just $7.3 million in its first three days. Although it will continue to play over Christmas, it’s still likely to be seen as a significant failure.

More impressive was Dhoom 3, which may have earned only around half of what Walking With Dinosaurs did, but it did so on less than 10% of the screens the dino movie had. It’s $3.3 million weekend is a record for a Bollywood movie in the US, which very rarely make the top 10.

Take a look below for the US box office top 10 for the weekend of December 20th-22nd 2013.