Box office

YOUR WEAKEND BOX OFFICE: Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (WB) towered above a field of holdovers, earning $84.8 million while averaging $20,958 on 4045 screens. For what it’s worth, DreamWorks Animation’s Paramount-distributed Rise of the Guardians was next with $7.4m in week four ($2191 avg., 3387 theaters), followed by Disney’s Lincoln with $7.2m ($3170 avg., 2285 theaters), Sony’s Skyfall with $7m ($2394 avg., 2924 theaters) and Fox’s Life of Pi with $5.4m ($2119 avg., 2548 theaters). Things will heat up considerably this week, with a deluge of high-profile films hitting theaters, led by Katharine Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (Sony) and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (Weinstein). (12/17a)