Weekend box office: Les Miserables and Django Unchained can't beat The Hobbit

Brad Sturdivant December 30th, 2012

Weekend box office: Les Miserables finishes strong

Despite strong showings on Christmas day from both LES MISERABLES and DJANGO UNCHAINED, it looks like THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (click the links to read our reviews) is going to finish atop the weekend box office yet again. The race is really for second place and right now, Quentin Tarantino’s DJANGO UNCHAINED has a slight leg up on LES MISERABLES. Given how well they did on Christmas and how much audiences seem to have enjoyed both of the films, I’m surprised they couldn’t beat out the generally underwhelming Hobbit. But I guess a sad, depressing musical and a revenge film about slavery aren’t quite the box office behemoths The Hobbit is. But what’s most surprising is how well PARENTAL GUIDANCE is doing. Just watching the TV spots made my head hurt, so the fact it’s going to pull in about $15 million is shocking to me.

This Christmas weekend pretty much marked the end of exciting movie releases for a while. The only thing we’ll get now are the wide releases of Oscar hopefulls and movies that studios forgot about. Next weekend sees the release of TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D, marking yet another telling of the story, along with the wide release of THE IMPOSSIBLE. THE IMPOSSIBLE is a quality film, even if it is a little draining. As for TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D, I don’t think it will do well given the unusual release date for a horror film, but I’ve been wrong about horror films before. I wouldn’t be surprised to see THE HOBBIT or even DJANGO UNCHAINED take the top spot next weekend. Note: the numbers below will be updated as they become final.

1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey $31.5m

2. Django Unchained $31m

3. Les Miserables $27.4m

4. Parental Guidance $14.4m

5. Jack Reacher $14m

6. This is 40 $12.5m

7. Lincoln $7.5m

8. Monsters Inc 3D $6.5m

9. The Guilt Trip $6.5m

10. Rise of the Guardians $5.3m

(Deadline)