Bilbo and company unsurprisingly take the top spot

The Hobbit battles its way to the top of the mountain.

Sometimes the box office top five goes exactly as expected, with this certainly being one of those weeks with The Hobbit sequel taking top spot. Taking an impressive £9.3m, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug gained over £1m more than the rest of the top 15, and £5.1m more than its nearest rival, last week’s number one, Frozen.

Falstaff – Met Opera 2013 is the only other new entry this week, taking a respectable £224,763 and just missing out on the top five. The limited appeal of watching opera at the cinema was always going to hold it back, however the relatively low takings for its competition made this high position possible.

The surprise this week is the reappearance of this year’s highest ranked box office film, Despicable Me 2; being in its 25th week and now out on DVD and Blu-Ray, it’s certainly doing extremely well.

New for next weekend’s box office

Destined for a place in the top 5 next week is Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, which continues the story of Ron Burgundy and his news team on their journey into the world of 24 hour news. This is likely to enter the top 5, but it’ll be a challenge to take the top spot off The Hobbit 2.

Also fighting for the top will be Walking with Dinosaurs 3D, which should be a draw for fans of The Land Before Time and other dino-based movies. Despite this, we don’t think it’ll have the same draw as Ron Burgundy, and we’re expecting comfortable success for the moustached anchorman.

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