"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" made $13 million at theaters that premiered the movie at midnight or soon after on Dec. 13 in North America according to The Los Angeles Times.
This is a decent start for what should be a great weekend for Peter Jackson's highly anticipated movie which was shown in around 3,100 locations in the U.S.
Despite the respectable number, the movie didn't come close to the all-time record which is currently held by "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 2" which was released in July 2011. The movie made $43.5 million at the box-office in midnight sales alone according to Entertainment Weekly.
"Keep in mind that even "The Avengers" did not have huge midnights and still killed the weekend," Hollywood.com box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian said to E! Online.
Films that performed better at midnight than "The Hobbit" this year includes:
"Breaking Dawn- Part 2" -$30.4 million
"The Dark Knight Rises" - $30.6 million
"The Hunger Games"- $19.7 million
"The Avengers" - $18.7 million
Warner Brothers expects the film to make close to $100 million this weekend alone based on the predicted number of IMAX and 3-D ticket sales. The movie made $1.6 million from 326 IMAX theaters that premiered the film at midnight.
Some have been debating whether they would see the new movie or not based on the way the film was shot. Jackson went away from the successful film techniques he used for "The Lord of the Rings" series, and instead opted for a high frame rate technology instead. The movie was shot in 48 frames per second according to Yahoo.
Jackson's' last installment of the LOTR series "The Return of the King" earned a total of $377 million at the box office and an Oscar award for Best Picture.
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