"The Hobbit" Dominated This Pre-Christmas Box Office Weekend

Also, is Tom Cruise's star power beginning to fade?

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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As we prepare for the highly-anticipated Christmas releases of both Les Misérables and Django Unchained, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey managed to take advantage of what will likely be its last weekend on top of the box office charts by bringing in an additional $36.7 million from Friday through Sunday, according to Box Office Mojo. The first part of Peter Jackson’s latest Middle Earth trilogy has now earned $149.8 million in the U.S. so far, as well as an additional $300+ million overseas.

However, the film fell a staggering 73% on its second Friday, with an overall 57% drop for the entire weekend. This isn’t encouraging news for the movie, being that it even had inflated IMAX ticket prices to try to boost its totals. The Hobbit’s 10-day box office take is now lower than that of both The Two Towers and Return of the King. It will be interesting to see if The Hobbit can bounce back as Les Misérables and Django breathe down its neck starting on Tuesday.

More alarming is the soft opening for the Tom Cruise action flick, Jack Reacher. Though it did well with critics, the movie opened to just a $15.6 million weekend, which is below two previous Cruise Christmas season releases: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Valkyrie.

Coming in third was the new Judd Apatow comedy, This is 40, with $12.03 million. And rounding out the top five was Rise of the Guardians ($5.9 million) and Lincoln ($5.6 million). We’ll have another box office update once Django and Les Misérables open on Christmas.

RELATED: The 10 Best Tolkien Monsters In Movies 

[via Box Office Mojo]

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