New releases were given no chance at the box-office.
With The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Disney's Frozen and Anchorman 2 continuing to dominate the box office chart in both the US and UK, new releases over the holidays had little chance of making much of a dent.
Keanu Reeves in 47 Ronin
Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty fared slightly better than Keanu Reeves' Japanese action movie 47 Ronin. In America, Mitty landed at number 7, with Ronin in 9th place. In the UK both charted a bit higher, with Mitty at 4 and Ronin at 5. It probably didn't help that 47 Ronin had far fewer press screenings so couldn't generate much buzz (Universal declined to let Contactmusic see the film). Check out our review of Walter Mitty here.
Worst of all, though, was poor Justin Bieber, whose follow-up concert documentary Believe failed to make the top 10 at all.
In the US, the more interesting battle was between heavy-hitting awards contenders The Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle and Saving Mr Banks. In the end, American Hustle emerged victorious with $19.6m, followed by Wolf at $18.5m and Banks at $14m. As far as cumulative takings go, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is leading the pack with a whopping $398m.
Watch the trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug:
At the moment, that puts Catching Fire in second place overall for 2013 in the US, although it's still making a lot of money and is likely to overtake the year's leader Iron Man 3 ($409m) in the next week or two. Meanwhile in the UK, Despicable Me 2 has a solid hold on the top spot for the year with £45m.
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