‘The Hobbit’ Lighter Numbers, ‘Frozen’ Steals ‘Madea’s Christmas’ As ‘American Hustle’ Kicks It On Six Screens

‘The Hobbit’ Lighter Numbers, ‘Frozen’ Steals ‘Madea’s Christmas’ As ‘American Hustle’ Kicks It On Six Screens

BOX OFFICE THUMBNAIL: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Warner Bros, wide) playing to lighter numbers than last year’s first installment of the trilogy; Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas (Lionsgate, wide) looks to be lowest opening for a Madea title; American Hustle (Sony, limited) very strong per screens; Saving Mr. Banks (Disney, limited) not banking; Inside Llewyn Davis (CBS Films, expanded to 15 locales) per screens falling fast; Hours starring the late Paul Walker (Pantelion Films â€" joint venture between L ionsgate and Grupo â€" limited in 16 theaters and on VOD).

The box office this weekend opens in a completely different environment from last year, with a four-week rather than a five-week window between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Combined with a record-setting Thanksgiving weekend this year, the strongholds that opened earlier in the shorted time frame are still a factor in this weekend’s marketplace on all openers.

When Warner Bros’ The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey launched last year to $ 84 million, it did so as other films in the marketplace already had slowed. Last year, the difference between The Hobbit and the next picture under it was substantial as Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part II and Lincoln (both of which were in wide release) were pulling in around $ 7 million for the three-day. Beside strong holdovers, we have another picture entering the fray, yes, another Tyler Perry Madea movie — the first one to open around Christmas. And, early estimates show that it will open in third place with possibly the lowest opening for a Madea pic (see below).

One other note that came to me today, which I thought was very interesting in the big-picture scheme of things: both Hobbit and Madea movies do extremely well on movies purchased digitally over the Internet on VOD as well as in DVD/Blu-ray in sales and rentals, according to Rentrak’s Paul Dergarabidian. “For example, 2012’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ranks third among all movies ever purchased digitally over the Internet in the U.S. and spent five weeks in the U.S. Top 10 ranking for Video on Demand purchases.” But, once again, you gotta also figure in those production/marketing/distribution costs.

Related: Overseas Box Office: ‘The Desolation Of Smaug’ Opens No. 1

So here we go — and remember these are only estimates and subject to change:

The Desolation of Smaug is opening a bit lighter than previously thought for Warner Bros, with opening estimates for the three-day weekend looking like between around $ 70M to $ 73M in 3,903 theaters. It had midnight screenings on Thursday night in about 3,000 theaters to add another $ 8.8 million to its final opening-weekend cume ($ 1.2M of which was from IMAX theaters). Last year’s Hobbit opened to about $ 84.6 million in over 4,045 theaters, or $ 20,914 per. This year’s Hobbit has a per around $ 18,000 to $ 19,000 so far. By 3 p.m. today, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug represented 90% of all weekend sales on Fandango.

Disney’s animated family film Frozen is holding strong and looks to take the No. 2 spot, pushing aside Tyler Perry’s A Madea’s Christmas. Frozen is sliding in with a total estimated take in the $ 23M to $ 24M range this weekend. The very well-received family pic is still playing in 3,716 theaters in its fourth weekend out.

Lionsgate is taking over the third and fourth spots this weekend with two franchises. Madea is bowing to what appears might be the lowest opening-weekend number in its series with an estimated of around $ 15M, give or take a half a million. While The Hunger Games: Catching Fire nabs the No. 4 spot in its fourth week out to pull in another $ 13M to 15M weekend. It’s down about 45% from last weekend.

The release date for Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas marks a departure from earlier-in-the-year Madea releases. The last two Madea movies opening in the earlier time frame opened to around $ 25 million. (Madea films notoriously have been good openers.) It is playing in 2,194 theaters. It’s an older female-skewing property in a time where older-female pre-Christmas moviegoers are harder to get into the theaters. Older female audiences … that brings me to:

Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks is not banking. On its limited runs (15 screens), it looks like a per-screen estimate of around $ 23,000 for the three day. It will go wide next week and obviously is skewing to an older audience. (This older female loved it.) Surely, it was hoping to have some awards to help market the picture, but only Emma Thompson received kudos from the Golden Globes and SAG.

Of course, the marketing departments already are putting in their newly cut spots on air touting their award mentions, which brings me to Sony’s critically-acclaimed and Golden Globe-nominated (7 including Best Musical or Comedy) American Hustle, co-financed by AnnaPurna, Megan Ellison’s company — the patron saint of very good movies that wouldn’t be made otherwise (Zero Dark Thirty, The Master, Her).

David O. Russell’s American Hustle, starring a stellar ensemble cast of Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Bradley Cooper, is in limited release on six screens with very strong per screens looking to go over $ 100,000 (range is $ 106,000 to $ 110,000 but could change) for the weekend. That’s a nice lead-in to next weekend, when it goes wide, and exhibitors I’ve spoken to this week just love this movie. Sony is handling this release differently from 2010′s The Social Network, for which it was criticized for taking that picture out too fast, too far and then lost some mome ntum going into the Oscars.

Having seen American Hustle and heard the excitement from exhibitors across the nation, expect the film to enjoy its play for a long while with positive word-of-mouth. It is likely to stroll easily down the Oscar red carpet.

The question is what happens the following weekend when Martin Scorsese’s too-much-too much-somebody-stop-him The Wolf of Wall Street bows. It’s a very hard R, which Paramount’s marketing team has deftly bypassed to sell the party aspect of the film, but is not exactly what some audiences might expect given how it has been advertised. Both Wolf and American Hustle are period pieces about excess, but only one is three … hours … long.

When school lets out over the coming two weeks and the 25-and-youngers flood into the marketplace, there is always an upsurge of moviegoing.

CBS Films’ Inside Llewyn Davis, which bowed last weekend to per screens over $ 100,000, took a hit this weekend in its expansion. The Coen brothers’ movie is just not traveling well in its 15 theaters, up from 4 last weekend, as its per-screen average is now around the $ 20,000-$ 21,000 mark, a downturn from a week earlier.

In fifth place is Disney’s Thor: The Dark World. In its sixth week out, the superhero sequel is on track for an estimated $ 3M weekend to push its cume just under the $ 200M mark.

In its second week out, Relativity’s Out Of The Furnace looks to drop anywhere between 55% and 60% this weekend for a take of a little over $ 2M and a cume that has risen to around $ 9M in early estimates. That’s a big drop. It is in the sixth spot at the moment. Since both American Hustle and Out Of The Furnace star Christian Bale, I decided to get the breakdowns of how Bale does overseas in similar films. For American Hustle, with its critical acclaim not unlike The Fighter, I chose to look at the latter film as a comparable: The Fighter did a $ 34.1M cume in international territories. (Of course, Bale — who won a supporting actor Oscar for The Fighter — became very well known to international audiences through the billion-dollar Batman franchise.) Will be interesting to see what these pics do overseas.

Noteworthy: Bale and Lawrence both have two pictures in the top ten this weekend.

The little movie The Book Thief from Fox is still playing in 1,158 theaters for another $ 2M possible weekend to push its cume to $ 15M or so. Philomena, which earned a Golden Globe nom for Best Drama and GG and SAG noms for its star Judi Dench, at the moment looks to earn another $ 1.8M to $ 2M this weekend on 835 theaters for The Weinstein Co.

Hours, the Paul Walker movie about Katrina, with only nine theaters counted pulled in around $ 7,000 for Friday night, one source noted. It is playing on a total of 16 screens. Will update numbers when I get them.

Next weekend is a crowdfest and after that, a packed elevator.

Next week: Anchorman2: The Legend Continues (Paramount, opening wide Wednesday), Walking With Dinosaurs (Fox, 3D wide) American Hustle (Sony, wide), Saving Mr. Banks (Disney, wide), Inside Llewyn Davis (CBS Films, expands), Her (Warner Bros, limited). The Past (Sony Classics, limited).

Deadline.com