The merits of Peter Jackson's choice to shoot The Hobbit in 48 frames per second continue to be debated but the opening weekend of the first movie in the trilogy left no ambiguity at the box office.

"As expected, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, crushed the competition at the box office in its debut weekend, setting a new December record in the process." -- Entertainment Weekly

The Huffington Post elaborated on that record:

"[The Hobbit's] $84.7 million estimated debut clobbered the December record, which is the $77 million earned by Avatar ($77 million, $80 million adjusted for inflation) and I Am Legend ($77.2 million, $89 million adjusted for inflation) in 2009 and 2007 respectively."

The opening was also better than the three Lord of the Rings movies.

WIRED's review of the movie was glowing and described the look of The Hobbit this way:

"In the 48-frames-per-second version of Hobbit, Middle-earth in 3D looks so crisp it's like stepping into the foreground of an insanely gorgeous diorama.... when it comes to the wilder reaches of Tolkien's imagination, characters gain freaky, highly detailed verisimilitude by getting served up on the high-tech combination plate of fast frame and 3-D."

The place atop the weekend's box office was expected for this Unexpected Journey. The Hobbit brings fans back into Jackson's vision of the now familiar, fantastic world of Middle Earth yet adds a new dimension to it.