The lucrative holiday season has come to a close, and the domestic box office is about to slow down. But, the first 24 hours of 2014 proved to be yet another winning day for Disney’s “Frozen” and Warner Bros.’ “The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug.”
“Frozen” topped the day with $8.7 million, bringing its domestic total to a massive $271.8 million. It’s on schedule to pass Pixar’s “Up” as the fourth-highest grossing animated film of all time. That film soared to $293 million in 2009.
Meanwhile, “Smaug” was a close second, scaring up another $7.8 million. The Tolkien sequel has so far earned $209.3 in North America, and is performing like gangbusters overseas, where it has tallied a huge $423.8 million.
However, “Smaug” is having a hard time keeping up with last year’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” which ended up with a $303 million domestic haul and topped $1 billion worldwide.
In third place on New Year’s Day was Martin Scorsese’s controversial “Wolf of Wall Street.” The Leonardo DiCaprio epic earned some $5.6 million, bringing its domestic total to $47.2 million.
David O. Russell’s all star comedy “American Hustle” nabbed $5.4 million for fourth place. Its domestic total stands at a handsome $72.9 million.
Ron Burgundy and pals rounded out the top five, as “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” scored another $4.8 million. So far, the comedy sequel has laughed its way to $95.9 million at home.
It will cross the magic $100 million mark this weekend, placing it way ahead of the 2004 original, which topped out at $85 million at the domestic box office.
The holiday releases are about to get some new competition this weekend, as the found footage horror sequel “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones” could pull ahead of both “Frozen” and “The Hobbit.”