DESPITE receiving mostly negative to neutral reviews from critics, audiences came out in droves to see Peter Jackson’s big screen adaptation of JRR Tolkein’s classic novel, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey last weekend.

Not only did the bad reviews not hurt the film’s performance, but the first of the trilogy managed to break records at the weekend box office. First up was the Friday opening, where The Hobbit managed to rake in $37.5 million, $13 million of which was from midnight shows, setting a record Friday for a December opening.

It is also on pace to take in over $90 million for the weekend, which would be a record for largest December opening. Other studios wisely avoided opening their movies on the same week as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Next week sees Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher and, Seth Rogen and Barbara Streisand in The Guilt Trip and the “sort-of” sequel to Knocked Up, This Is 40. But it also sees a slew of limited releases, including Zero Dark Thirty, On The Road, The Impossible, Not Fade Away and Amour.

As well as The Hobbit did this weekend, some critics do not see it getting a lot of repeat business, mainly because it was such a disappointment, but also because not a whole lot of people can handle that three-hour run-time.