“The Hobbit” Movie Tops Box Office

“The Hobbit” Movie Tops Box Office

“The Hobbit” movie has continued to do well at the box office as it overwhelmed “Jack Reacher”, grabbing around $37.6 million in North American ticket sales.

“Jack Reacher”, which stars Tom Cruise, raked in around $15.6 million in ticket sales while “This is 40” placed third with around $12 million. However, the second weekend of “The Hobbit” movie saw a 57 percent reduction in domestic tickets sales.

Warner Bros. revealed that international ticket sales for “The Hobbit” movie were at $284 million, bringing the total global sales of the movie to $434 million. “The Hobbit” movie is a prequel to the highly-successful “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which is based on the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Christmas and New Year holidays will be beneficial for the “The Hobbit” movie along with other films that have reached the big screen recently. Expectations are high that 2012 will be a domestic box record as ticket sales may reach $10.8 billion in the North American market.

The red-carpet premiere of “Jack Reacher” was postponed following the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, although it opened a few days after the tragedy. However, the domestic distribution president of Paramount, Don Harris, indicated that ticket sales of the movie are expected to increase in the coming weeks. He added that the Newtown tragedy did not affect the opening of the movie.

“This is 40” is an adult comedy that stars Paul Rudd alongside Leslie Mann and is distributed by Universal Studios. It is more or less a sequel to “Knocked Up” a 2007 comedy.

“The Guilt Trip”, which stars Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand, “Monsters Inc” in 3D, and “Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away” were also released recently, earning $7.4 million, $5 million, and $2.1 respectively.

On the other hand “Zero Dark Thirty”, which is distributed by the film studio of Sony Corp, grossed around $410,000 after it opened in five theaters in Los Angeles and New York. This was considered as a huge start for the movie despite its limited released, according to Paul Dergarabedian of Hollywood.com

Paramount Pictures is the distributor of "Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away”, “Jack Reacher,” and “The Guilt Trip.” Warner Bros of Time Warner is handling the distribution of “The Hobbit” movie.

Posted by Kade Quinn on Monday December 24 2012, 6:56 AM EST. Ref: Reuters. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Entertainment, Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0