There was little doubt that The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug would top the US box office this weekend. The only question was how much it would take. There was a lot of disagreement going into the weekend, with some suggesting it could take as much as $80 million, while others thought it would struggle to make $70 million.
In the end it made a strong but not as spectacular as some had expected $73.6 million. It’s certainly not a disaster, and with a strong international showing it’s likely to end up grossing around the same as the billion pounds the first movie took worldwide. It’s also true that the film faced strong holdovers from Catching Fire and Frozen, which may have affected it opening, but it should make up some US ground over the coming week.
The only other new opener was Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas, which disappointed with $16 million. Most of Perry’s other Madea movies have had $25+ million openings, so despite the festive theme, it seems audiences aren’t that interested.
Take a look below for the US box office top 10 for the weekend of December 13th-15th.
| Rank | Title | Weekend Gross (millions) | Total Gross to date (millions) |
| 1 | The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug | $73.6 | $73.6 |
| 2 | Frozen | $22.1 | $164.3 |
| 3 | Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas | $16.0 | $16.0 |
| 4 | The Hunger Games: Catching Fire | $13.1 | $356.9 |
| 5 | Thor: The Dark World | $2.7 | $198.1 |
| 6 | Out Of The Furnace | $2.3 | $9.4 |
| 7 | Delivery Man | $1.8 | $27.9 |
| 8 | Philomena | $1.7 | $11.0 |
| 9 | The Book Thief | $1,6 | $14.8 |
| 10 | Homefront | $1.6 | $18.4 |
Frozen had a great opening over the Thanksgiving holiday, but even so it ended up second on the US box office chart due to the continuing success of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. However this weekend the roles were reversed as Frozen snuck past Catching Fire with $31 million versus Hunger Games 2’s $27 million.
If nothing else, the cast for Out Of The Furnace is going to be a good one, with the latest person who’s sniffing around the film being Woody Harrelson, who 
While Christian Bale and Zoe Saldana have been attached to Out Of The Furnace for a while, it’s only now that Relativity Media have closed deals with Bale and Saldana, along with Casey Affleck and Sam Shepard, to star in the film, with the last of those a new addition to the cast.
Crazy Heart helmer Scott Cooper signed up to direct Out Of The Furnace well over a year ago, and even by that point the script had been doing the rounds for quite a while, going through the hands of Ridley Scott and others. However now things are finally coming together, with Cooper busy putting the cast together.
Nothing is set in stone yet, but