Chinese film fans boost Hobbit's global haul

Peter Jackson.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has opened big in China, grossing US$49.5 million ($66.6 million) in its first weekend.

That takes Peter Jackson's third movie in the trilogy to an international take of US$866.5 million so far, making it the second-biggest movie released last year after Transformers: Age of Extinction which reached US$1 billion - nearly a third of which came from the growing Chinese cinema market.

US film industry news outlet Variety reports that Five Armies has been hit by global currency issues.

In the likes of Russia, it says, the film has drawn larger crowds than previous instalments, but the strength of the US dollar and the decline of the euro and the ruble have led to lower receipts.

China's yuan is still strong and Five Armies looks like it will easily outdo its predecessors in the country after its strong first weekend on nearly 9000 cinema screens.

After more than a month on release, the third Hobbit film has now slipped out of the North American box office top 10 having taken nearly US$250 million there. That is still behind second film The Desolation of Smaug's US$258 million American gross and the first, An Unexpected Journey's US$303 million.

The final film still has a way to go to catch the final cinema grosses of its predecessors with the first film grossing US$1017 million and the second US$960 million globally.

Meanwhile, in North America, American Sniper has hit the mark with moviegoers again.

The Navy Seal drama starring Bradley Cooper topped the box office for a second weekend in a row with US$64.4 million, according to studio estimates yesterday. The total haul for the Warner Bros film stands at US$200.1 million.

The Universal thriller The Boy Next Door featuring Jennifer Lopez as a teacher who engages in an affair with a younger man debuted in second place with US$15 million.

The weekend's other major new releases did not fare well. The animated fantasy Strange Magic opened in a distant seventh place with US$5.5 million, while the Johnny Depp dud Mortdecai flopped in ninth place with US$4.1 million.

- Staff reporter, agencies