Box office roundup – Dec. 15, 2013 – The Hobbit's "Smaug" smokes out the competition
1. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” – $73.7 million – [debut week] The middle chapter of Peter Jackson’s ” Hobbit” racked up $8.8 million on Friday, the second best in December opening so far. It trails only “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” which earned $13 million when it debuted last year. While it’s trending below “Journey,” which opened with $84.6 million, “Smaug” does have an A- CinemaScore so it may benefit from positive word-of-mouth and top the charts for the rest of the year. What’s interesting is that Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy saw continued growth throughout each installment. “The Two Towers,” the second film of the LOTR series, earned $339.7 million up from “Fellowship of the Ring‘s” $313.3 million total. “Return of the King” finished the series with $377 million.
2. Frozen – $22.2 million [4th week; $164 million total] Disney’s animated charmer is looking like the go-to choice for families this holiday season and will remain a strong force this holiday season.
3. Tyler Perry’s A Madea’s Christmas – $16 million [debut week] – Remember this figure when we’re stuck with another three Madea movies next year people.
Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson).
4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – $13.2 million [4th week; $357 million total] – “The Hobbit” certainly affected last week’s runner-up as they vie for similar audiences. At this point, it’s chasing after “Iron Man 3,” which is the year’s highest grosser with $409 million domestically. Worldwide, it won’t reach IM3’s $1.2 billion haul as it’s at $740 million.
5. Thor: The Dark World – $2.7 million – [6th week; $198 million] It’s pretty impressive that in its sixth week, Thor has continued to be a fixture in the Top 5. Worldwide, this has earned $620 million – a very significant improvement over “Thor’s” $449 million – and it’s yet to open in Japan.
Well I still feel the MADEA films try put across some social values that I think the African American Community responses to. Plus, I think Mr. Perry is using the profits to create something that provides young African Americans opportunities to work in many aspects of the film industry. I am not sure one can say that about THE IRON MAN films or the others films mentioned in this round up. I said my piece about most of the comic book films Thor and the others – now I leave them alone. I believe MADEA at least worthy of the same kind of treatment. I understand a baby has to crawl before it walks.
Maybe. Perry’s passed the crawling phase and I’m ready for him to try more challenging material than continuing to go back to the Madea well.
Oh I thought Alex Cross pretty good. I wonder if it’s lack of appeal had more to do with perception of what roles BLACK MEN should play rather then the quality of the production, the plot and character development. I think it is hard crack into film business at the overall production level. I am not so sure Mr. Perry or any BLACK person who is making films at that level is beyond advanced crawling yet. Things will get better he has other projects coming down the pike. Give him time and forgive as it takes a lot money to produce this kind of product. MADEA has to pay for losers at this point your know. MADEA is not as harmful as those BLACK GANGSTER films were.
I think the reason for Cross’ lack of appeal was solely due to Perry’s lack of credibility as a tough guy after parading around as a woman in half his movies. Had someone like Idris Elba starred as Alex Cross, I think it would have worked.
Yeah, that may be true, but I was impressed with his acting. He was so strong tough and masculine. Plus Alex was respected for his smarts. But I guess he will have stay behind the camera or in the office and be content in bringing young BLACK TALENT. I hope he does not have an ego problem. He could be just as famous doing those things. But may be he wants to prove he can do more than MADEA Acting wise. Plus, there is homophobic concern that he surely has to deal with in our community. There are always those human frailties that could peoples vision about what is important.
I don’t mind him in the dramas, I just found him very unbelievable as a tough guy specifically because he seemed to be trying so hard.
Sorry Fred, you may have not picked up my hope that more BLACK FOLKS will be involved in the many aspects of the film industry. I assume that the number of BLACK FOLKS involved In the production all these Comic Films is not where near as many as Mr. Perry has in has involved his productions. From whatever I have read in JET and other things he is making an effort to give them opportunities to learn the trades the film industry. Just because there are BLACKS acting on the big screen does not mean Blacks are participating at a meaning amount in all the other aspects on the production of the film itself. There are a lot well paying jobs other than acting and I want our Folks to have the chances to develop the skills so they can occupy them all over the industry. That it is the diversity I love.
Well jklmd I was around for the Amos and Andy argument which said we should worry that our children might not see BLACKs as serious actors if they only see them doing comedy. May you can only see the Brother now as famine character since that is all we have seen him do until now. I did not think he was trying to hard. To me it was just skillful acting. He was quite believable toe me.
Pierre i’ll agree with you that there is probably not as many BLACKS involved in Comic Films as they are in a Tyler Perry film, that would stand to reason. And it would be great to see more Blacks involved in the scenes as well as behind the scenes. Now I love so many things Marvel Studios is doing, but I’ve been saying for a while that it’s time for them to broaden and expand their horizons. As much as I love so many of these characters, you can’t just keep feeding movie audiences WHITE lead superheroes over and over, that begins to get old after a while. The time is now not just for Marvel to start introducing lead Black Superheroes like BLACK PANTHER & LUKE CAGE, but female superheroes such as MS. MARVEL, SHE-HULK, WASP, etc. Now introducing SCARLET WITCH in AGE OF ULTRON is a good start, but they need to do more than that. And while I love WAR MACHINE and FALCON, their not lead superheroes, never have been, their sidekicks like ROBIN is to be honest. So yeah I picked up on what you we’re saying, I decided to expand a little more on what I would like to see as well.
We are on the same page Fred.
We pretty much are on the same page in this subject, here’s to hoping we can see more of these breakthroughs in CBM’s and other big budget films then we are currently seeing.
Now that more films with African Americans are succeeding at the box office hopefully we don’t have to worry about Tyler Perry making the only films featuring African American casts anymore. I’m for diversity and more films featuring African Americans making the big screen. You lost me a little bit with the complaints on comic book films, don’t know what that has to do with what Tyler Perry films are doing.