The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies continues to do well at the box office despite the release of several new films on Christmas Day.
If all goes well, The Hobbit could gross $600 million before the end of 2014, and it will only have a short window to reach $700 million.
Variety reported The Battle of the Five Armies managed to earn $89.2 million from 62 territories across the world, which pushed its global earnings to $573.2 million. Warner Bros. is hoping that the third film in the trilogy might fend off competition to gross $1 billion worldwide. With the film being the most terrible of the three, despite having a 45-minute battle at the end, we have doubts the $1 billion threshold would be crossed.
Peter Jackson's final trek into Middle-earth is doing quite well overseas as it grossed $11.7 million in Germany and $10.1 million in Australia. At the moment, Warner Bros. is preparing to launch the film in China. Chances are, that is the territory the studio is hoping will push the movie to that $1 billion mark.
In other news, Exodus: Gods and Kings sits far behind The Hobbit in the amount of money grossed outside the United States. The film has so far only grossed $149.5 million worldwide while it is an almost complete flop in the U.S. Things are more on edge for Exodus since several countries in the Middle East have banned the movie.
Next up, we have Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. This film is another disappointment at the box office, and like Exodus: Gods and Kings, Fox, the studio behind the movie, is making attempts to recuperate production cost in overseas markets.
We expect a different view of the box office in January 2015, as the likes of Selma and Taken 3 are gearing up for launch. We hope one of these films kick out The Hobbit from the top of the food chain, and pave the way for Black Hat and American Sniper.
With all the big movies scheduled for 2015, the box office should be booming by the end.
