Despite a lull at the end of the summer, a huge winter, with films like Twilight, Skyfall and The Hobbit, plus the Christmas day releases of Les Miserables and Django Unchained, have set the scene for a record breaking year for Hollywood in box office sales. 

Les Mis - the Universal cinematic reimagining of the classic musical - hauled in an impressive weekday Christmas record of $18.2 million in the United States and Canada, as families flocked to the pictures to catch their favourite stage show on the silver screen. Quentin Tarantino's controversial yet critically acclaimed Django Unchained - starring Jamie Foxx and Leonardo Dicaprio - managed nearly $15 million on the 25th.

Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Reuters in an email that the Studios "are definitely on the road to a record year with $10.8 billion expected (up 6 percent over last year and beating the previous record of $10.6 billion in 2009)." 

The mid-summer boosts of The Hunger Games and The Avengers, as well as successful marketing campaigns, are cited by Dergarbedien as reasons for the profitable year. "It was not just the fact that most of the movies delivered, it was the timing of their release dates and the marketing was obviously effective as well with social media continuing to provide an outlet for the movie-going peer group to talk about their favorite flicks," he explained.