Forget ski vacations or winter weekends in the tropics. Movie goers were all about taking a trip this weekend to Middle Earth.
The Hobbit – a prequel to The Lord of the Rings, and the first in a brand new trilogy from director Peter Jackson – took in $84.8 million in its first three days of release.
That made it number-one at the box office by a very wide margin and set a December record in the process, blowing by the $77.2 million made on opening weekend by I Am Legend in 2007.
Can The Hobbit equal the grosses of its J.R.R. Tolkien predecessors, each of whom took home over $300 million domestically?
We shall see. For now, scroll down and check out the weekend’s top five:
- The Hobbit: $84.8 million
- Rise of the Guardians: $7.4 million
- Lincoln: $7.2 million
- Skyfall: $7.0 million
- Life of Pi: $5.4 million