‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ breaks box office records

Well, Peter Jackson has done it again. The Lord of the Rings trilogy director's latest box office success, The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey opened Thursday at midnight to great success. His return to Middle-earth broke box office records for a December opening in North America with $84.77 million. 

That total beats out the $77.2 million record for a Christmas release that was held by Will Smith's I Am Legend from 2007, but it also beat out the $77.025 million of Avatar in 2009. Worldwide, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey made $222.97 million, putting it on course to be one fo the year's top five films. 

In comparison to the other JRR Tolkien books that Peter Jackson made famous on the big screen, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey looks like it's going to beat out all three films of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Of those three movies, The Return of the King — the highest-grossing movie of the trilogy — opened with $72.6 million in 2003. 

Of course, The Hobbit has been split into three movies, something that a lot of fans are wary of. It looks like the recent trend of taking a book series and making the last book into two films is going to give way to taking a single book and making it into three movies. All joking aside, The Hobbit has received mixed but generally positive reviews, and GameZone's own Joe Donato gave the film 3 1/2 out of 5 stars in our REVIEW. 

You can follow Senior Editor Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ. He likes talking sports, video games, movies, and the stupidity of celebrities. Email at LLiebl@GameZone.com

[Source: Guardian]