After an almost never ending saga of setbacks and 9 years after The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, director Peter Jackson takes his vision of J. R. R. Tolkien The Hobbit to the top of the box office.

Maybe because of the slightly less than favorable reviews are the reason but The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey debuts this week with a less than expected £11,601,538, still excellent but for best opening weekends that gross places it only at 33, between Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and 2, still an excellent gross but I don't think it will have a dominance over the box office like Skyfall has.

The Hobbit was nearly the only film released this week, but Disney did release Tinker Bell and the Secret of the Wings which landed at 5 with £528,82

Falling to number 2 this week is Rise of the Guardians which grossed £1,250,469 over the weekend.

A year ago Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows took the top spot with £3,827,697 on it's debut weekend knocking Arthur Christmas into third.

Five years ago The Golden Compass was still at the top with £3,002,951 while Enchanted entered at number 2 with £2,547,975.

Ten years ago Bond was still the top film with a weekend gross of £2,220,351 taking it's total to £27,078,158 while the top film was Like Mike at 4 with £246,169.

After a few weeks of dominance from Skyfall and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 we have a new number 1, rising to the top is the animated film Rise of the Guardians.

Maybe this is a little bit of a shock, and it will of course be for 1 week only due to the onslaught of The Hobbit next week, we see Rise of the Guardians take the top spot after it was highest new entry last week.

Taking £1,602,689 from the weekend it easily knocked the Bond top earner to second place, in total now Guardians has taken £4,062,292.

Skyfalls total is now £96,333,036 and it may struggle to make the £100 million mark.

Highest new film of the week is Seven Psychopaths at 3 with a weekend take of £1,121,679.

A year ago the Shrek franchise went off in another direction and hit big as Puss in Boots took the top spot in it's opening weekend with just shy of £2 million.

Five years ago we all hoped it would be the start of a Lord of the Rings style franchise, but alas no, as The Golden Compass took the top spot on it's debut weekend with an incredible £7,243,984.

Ten years ago it was still all Bond at the top with Die Another Day and the top new film was Jamie Bell in Deathwatch at 4 with £334,657.

Fifteen years ago it was also Bond with Tomorrow Never Dies although Spice World The Movie was doing well in the midst of Girl Power.