New «Hobbit» tops N.American box office
LOS ANGELES. KAZINFORM Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies," together with other two newly released films "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb" and "Annie," swept the first three places of the box office in North America in the last weekend.
According to ticket tracker Rentrak, playing at 3,875 theaters, the final chapter in Jackson's "Hobbit" trilogy went out on top with an estimated 56.2 million dollars last weekend, Xinhua reports.
The five-day gross of this new "Hobbit" was a high earning of 90.6 million dollars since its debut on Wednesday. The figure is 11 percent lower than that of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," which opened around the same time back in 2002 and got 102 million dollars. Compared with the first two "Hobbit" films, "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies" was the lowest opening weekend in the franchise so far, though it is also the first and only installment released on a Wednesday. The movie got 13.6 million dollars at IMAX locations, which set a new record for December, while 3D shows represented 49 percent of ticket sales. The audience for the new "Hobbit" was 60 percent male and 60 percent over the age of 25. First night movie-goers awarded the movie an "A-" CinemaScore, which is pretty standard for the "Hobbit" trilogy. It got 61 percent of movie fresh rating on RottenTomatoes.com. "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb" followed the new "Hobbit" with an estimated 17.3 million dollars in weekend sales. "Annie" was on track with 16.3 million dollars.