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The Hobbit takes the Aussie box office two weekends running

The Hobbit

Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug has topped the Australian box office for the first weekend of the year. The film opened locally on Boxing Day and made $14.4m on its first weekend. That figure more than halved this weekend as the film took just $6.1m. The Desolation of Smaug opened in the US on December 13 and has grossed $654.4m worldwide to date. It was made with an estimated budget of US$250m.

The second highest earner this weekend was Disney’s animated feature Frozen. It made $4.8m and also opened on Boxing Day. Last weekend it grossed $6.05m.

Two Australian films continue to hold a place in the box office top 20. Jonathan Teplitsky’s The Railway Man which also opened on December 26 made $1.02m over the weekend. Distributed by Transmission Films, it played on 120 screens and has made $3.08m to date. The film stars Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth and was made on a reported budget of $26m.

Watch the trailer for The Railway Man:

The second Australian film in the top 20 is Umbrella Entertainment’s Backyard Ashes. It opened on November 7 and has made $266,203 locally taking $12,143 this weekend. The film had an estimated budget of $300,000.

THE BOX OFFICE TOP 20

Title (Distributor) Weekend B/O Screens Total B/O
The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (Wb) $6,155,039 631 $25,762,503
Frozen (Disney) $4,814,404 450 $15,931,614
The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (Fox) $2,717,686 267 $8,113,744
Anchorman 2 (Paramount) $2,272,834 378 $13,932,055
Walking With Dinosaurs 3d (Fox) $1,526,896 381 $2,059,159
August: Osage County (Roadshow) $1,440,545 217 $1,846,783
Philomena (Eone /hopscotch) $1,318,769 121 $4,205,979
American Hustle (Roadshow) $1,244,987 248 $8,949,624
The Railway Man (Transmission) $1,029,749 120 $3,089,627
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Roadshow) $838,248 161 $37,493,322
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 (Sony) $731,334 243 $10,182,206
The Gilded Cage (Palace) $129,167 20 $607,667
Dhoom 3 (Mindblowing Films) $81,191 21 $1,677,174
Gravity (Wb) $37,047 13 $20,990,088
Great White Shark 3d (Imax) $28,949 1 $52,957
Delivery Man (Disney) $21,922 11 $3,349,071
Blue Jasmine (Eone /hopscotch) $19,814 4 $6,186,222
Ender's Game (Icon) $17,292 12 $2,548,404
Hidden Universe 3d (Imax) $12,434 2 $491,220
Backyard Ashes (Umbrella Ent.) $12,143 6 $266,203

Data courtesy of the MPDAA.

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