It's a strange world we live in when a film can take $84.77m at the US box office and another $138.2m worldwide and be described as even a slight disappointment by analysts. But that's what's happened for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which has opened to what any other film would consider boffo box office.

The result was a December record, well above the $77.2m of I Am Legend a few years back. About $15m of the worldwide total came from IMAX screens.

Elsewhere, Rise Of The Guardians took $7.4m for second place and a total of $71.4m in the US so far, showing good legs (and good word-of-mouth) after a slow-ish start. Also displaying long rangy legs was Lincoln with $7.2m and $107.9m overall in the US after 6 weeks, a box-office tally that should help its awards chances (most Best Picture winners take over $100m worldwide).

Skyfall took $7m in fourth and now stands at $951m worldwide. If it sticks around just a few more weeks, we might see our first billion-dollar Bond.

Not quite so close behind was Life Of Pi with $5.4m, followed by the undying Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 with $5.2m. Wreck-It Ralph, Playing For Keeps and Red Dawn rounded out the US top ten, but you can see the full epic journey of the charts over at Box Office Mojo here.