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It took Leatherface and his chainsaw to chase tiny hobbit Bilbo Baggins out of the top spot at the box office.

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" continues to rule them all at the box office, staying on top for a third-straight week with nearly $33 million....

The big deal for Hollywood is not the record $10.8 billion that studios took in domestically in 2012. It's the fact that the number of tickets sold went up for the first time in three years.

... Leading the pack is Working Title/Universal’s Les Misérables debuting #1 in 2,808 theaters and receiving a coveted ‘A’ CinemaScore from audiences... Well, my insiders say today’s grosses looked like a big $15M to $20M — now more like $18M — for the PG13 film that runs 2 hours and 37 minutes and stars Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, and Russell Crowe.

...Remaining at the top of the charts is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, earning $36.7 million this weekend for an impressive total of over $149.8 million so far (numbers from Box Office Mojo). Though its earnings have dipped significantly since last weekend, it’s fair to say that it’ll remain in theaters—and perhaps at the top of the box office charts—for quite a while yet. Jack Reacher received the best numbers out of the new releases, pulling in $15.6 million this weekend. Though this falls short of the $18.5-$19 million prediction from HSX, compared to the earnings for some of the other releases, it’s certainly a respectable haul.

Traffic was sluggish at the multiplex on Friday as a crush of new movies -- including Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher and Judd Apatow's This Is 40 -- competed with one another for the attention of moviegoers already distracted by holiday preparations. Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey beat both new films to stay at No. 1, grossing $10.2 million for an eight-day domestic cume of $123.3 million.

Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" led the box office with a haul of $84.8 million, a record-setting opening better than the three previous "Lord of the Rings" films. The Warner Bros. Middle Earth epic was the biggest December opening ever, surpassing Will Smith's "I Am Legend," which opened with $77.2 million in 2007, according to studio estimates Sunday. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" also passed the December opening of "Avatar," which opened with $77 million. Internationally, "The Hobbit" also added $138.2 million, for an impressive debut well north of $200 million.

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is living up to expectations, grossing $37.5 million to score the biggest Friday ever in the month of December. Overseas, the film's three-day gross (it began rolling out Wednesday) is $57 million, putting its world total at $94.5 million.

James Bond is in a box-office photo finish with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny over what looks to be the last slow weekend of the holidays. According to studio estimates Sunday, Sony's Bond tale "Skyfall" took in $11 million to move back to No. 1 in its fifth weekend. That put it narrowly ahead of Paramount's "Rise of the Guardians," the animated adventure of Santa, the Easter Bunny and other mythological heroes that pulled in $10.5 million.

The "Twilight" finale and "Skyfall continued to dominate the box office on a typically slow post-Thanksgiving weekend that brought big business for holdover films but a poor start for Brad Pitt's new crime story. Sunday studio estimates put "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2" out front for the third-straight weekend with $17.4 million domestically.