The Hobbit breaks records

Hitfix reports:

Peter Jackson‘s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” has finally finished making its journey to the big screen, and Middle Earth fans sure missed the director-co-writer’s take on the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The film, the first of three based on the slender 1937 tome “The Hobbit,” picked up an estimated $13 million in midnight screenings in the U.S. on Thursday night. It’s the best December midnight performance of all-time.

Opening on 3,100 theaters (it’s adding nearly 1,000 more today), and aided by inflated IMAX, 3D and 48 fps ticket prices, “The Hobbit” is expected to gross somewhere between $80 million to $90 million for the weekend, which should easily pass the previous December champ — the Will Smith’s epic “I Am Legend,” which scared up $77.2 million in 2007.

I’m off to see it today. Can’t wait.