Box office

A FRIGID WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: It was an extremely cold weekend in some parts of the country (did you watch any of that snowbound NFL game between the Lions and Eagles in Philly? Whoa), so it seems fitting that Frozen leapfrogged The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in both films’ third weeks to take over first-place. The lone major debut, the dark, grim Out of the Furnace, fizzled to an estimated $5.3 million this weekend. The next Christian Bale-starring movie, David O. Russell’s American Hustle, will undoubtedly do much better business.

1. Frozen (Disney) – $31.6m (-53.0%), 3,742/$8,456 avg. (week 3)
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Lionsgate) – $27m (-63.6%), 4,163/$6,486 avg. (week 3)
3. Out of the Furnace (Relativity) – $5.3m, 2,101/$2,523 avg. (debut)
4. 3 Thor: The Dark World (Disney) – $4.7m (-57.2%), 3,074/$1,542 avg. (week 5)
5. Delivery Man (Disney) – $3.8m (-44.8%), 2,905/$1,299 avg. (week 3)

More interestingly (to us, at any rate), the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis opened to a whopping $401k—averaging north of $100k—at four locations in New York and L.A. (including the Arclight Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome, where CDs of the Nonesuch soundtrack album were handed out). According to Box Office Mojo, that total puts the critically embraced movie at18th all-time (eighth all-time among live-action movies). It's also ahead of other recent late-year four-theater releases like The King's Speech ($88,863), Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ($77,641) and The Fighter ($75,003). The site estimates that the movie will earn at least $20 million when it reaches nationwide release in January. (12/9a)