The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Disney's sequel movie Frozen II makes its UK box office debut at the top knocking last weeks top film, Last Christmas, into second place, while Blue Story makes an impressive start to its box office run at number 3.

Frozen II

Disney bring to the screen the follow up to 2013's Frozen which opened to £4.7 Million, the new movie opens to £15..08 million which is the biggest opening weekend for an animated movie in the UK beating Pixar's Toy Story 4 from earlier in the year.

To be fair the first movie did the hard work and built up the kind of following that meant the sequel was always going to hit big on its release.

Frozen went on to gross £43 Million during its total run and there is no reason why this movie will not match, if not exceed that films total.

The films £15 Million opening is the 28th highest ever in the UK, ahead of 2003's The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King and behind 2016's Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.

Last Christmas

Last week number 1 debut movie falls to number 2 this week with £2.2 Million which considering the negative reviews is still good.

The total gross sits at £6.7 Million after 2 weeks of release.

Blue Story

Director Andrew Onwubolu marks his debut with this gritty gangland drama set in London which makes is debut at number 3 with an incredible £1.3 Million from just 310 cinemas.

Le Mans '66

The racing drama starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale falls to 4 this week with £1.1 Million pushing its total to £4.2 Million after 2 weeks.

21 Bridges

Chadwick Boseman stars in this action film set in New York, it is directed by Brian Kirk and makes its UK box office debut at 5 with £655,213.

Joker

Warner Bros. DC villain movie continues to do well in the UK as it spends its 8th weekend on the chart with a total gross of £57 Million.

This week marks a bit of a mile stone in film global grosses, Despicable Me 3 goes over $1 billion, the first of the series to do so, this means now the top 30 top global grossing movies have all grossed over $1 Billion.

The first movie to do so was Titanic back in 1998 and was the only film to do so for a long time, that film had another bite of the cherry in 2012 and its gross is now over $2 billion.

The next film to do it was The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King in 2003, since then we have had at least one film a year do the fate.

The oldest film to go over $1 Billion is Jurassic Park from 1993, but again that had another go in 2011 which pushed it over the mark, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace similarly did the same.

To date only 3 film have gone to $2 Billion, Avatar (the top grossing movie of all time), Titanic and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The next milestone will be the top 50 all over a billion, which at the current rate will be some time in 2020/21, and then of course we look forward to the next Star Wars film going over the $2 Billion mark!.

Two films this year have made it past $1 billion in world box office grosses, Avengers Age of Ultron and Fast and Furious 7, which brings the total number of films to go past the threshold to 20.

The first film to do the feat was Titanic back in 1997, that held on as the only film to do so until The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King did it in 2004.

Since then we have had the likes of a Harry Potter film, a Transformers film, a Star Wars film after a re-release and a couple of Pirates of the Caribbean films do it.

Two animated films have also done the feat, Toy Story 3 and of course Disney's biggest hit to date Frozen.

The top film of all time, and the previously mentioned Titanic have gone over the $2 billion mark, although it did take Titanic a 3D re-release to do the $2B feat. Were looking at the first $3 Billion film now, Avengers Age of Ultron is doing well but will fall short, will Star Wars: The Force Awakens manage it, 2016 will tell us.

This week The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey nudges it's way past the $1 Billion world box office taking mark making it 15th film that has made it past the milestone.

This is an interesting group of films but the group is becoming less and less elite as time goes on, like the magic $100 million mark of time past.

The first film to manage the feat was Titanic back in 1998, and it held the record as the only film to have done it until 2003 when The Return of the King managed it. Since then, and with the introduction of 3D where you are charged more for your ticket, we have had 13 other films make the grade.

Of the 15, 8 had a 3D releases as well as a 2D release, 4 were released in 2012, 2 have made over $2 Billion, 1 made it over the billion mark after it's 3D re-release last year, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and 1 was released in about 6 different formats.

The $1 Billion club is bound to grow and grow so chart watchers are now looking for the next flurry of films to make over $2 Billion, a hard task of which only 1 film has truly made it without a re-release, but that had a 3D tax, Avatar.

These figures are not adjusted for inflation in ticket prices, this is a hotly debated subject, but it is generally accepted that the highest grossing film of all time if ticket sales had always been at today's prices would be Gone With the Wind, whic would today gross $3.2 Billion at the box office, in fact the top 15 would look something more like this

1. Gone with the Wind
2. Avatar
3. Titanic
4. Star Wars
5. The Lion King
6. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
7. Jurassic Park
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
9. Jaws
10. The Exorcist
11. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
12. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
13. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
14. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
15. Independence Day

After an almost never ending saga of setbacks and 9 years after The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, director Peter Jackson takes his vision of J. R. R. Tolkien The Hobbit to the top of the box office.

Maybe because of the slightly less than favorable reviews are the reason but The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey debuts this week with a less than expected £11,601,538, still excellent but for best opening weekends that gross places it only at 33, between Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and 2, still an excellent gross but I don't think it will have a dominance over the box office like Skyfall has.

The Hobbit was nearly the only film released this week, but Disney did release Tinker Bell and the Secret of the Wings which landed at 5 with £528,82

Falling to number 2 this week is Rise of the Guardians which grossed £1,250,469 over the weekend.

A year ago Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows took the top spot with £3,827,697 on it's debut weekend knocking Arthur Christmas into third.

Five years ago The Golden Compass was still at the top with £3,002,951 while Enchanted entered at number 2 with £2,547,975.

Ten years ago Bond was still the top film with a weekend gross of £2,220,351 taking it's total to £27,078,158 while the top film was Like Mike at 4 with £246,169.