After 77 days at the box office, **The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey **has passed the $1 billion mark with a $1,001,134,992 take - approximately $300 million earned in the US and $700 million internationally.
Cue several "a haul as big as Smaug's!" gags around Weta HQ and yet another billion-buster from Peter Jackson, with An Unexpected Journey following in the hairy footsteps of 2003's Return Of The King, which took $1.119 billion throughout its run.
The current top fifteen all time worldwide box office takings goes like this:
**Avatar **(2009) - $2.78 billion
**Titanic **(1997) - $2.18 billion
**The Avengers **(2012) - $1.5 billion
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011) - $1.32 billion
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (2011) - $1.12 billion
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) - $1.119 billion
**Skyfall **(2012) - $1.108 billion
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) - $1.081 billion
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - $1.066 billion
Toy Story 3 (2010) - $1.063 billion
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) - $1.043 billion
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) - $1.027 billion
Alice In Wonderland (2010) - $1.024 billion
The Dark Knight (2008) - $1.004
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) - $1.001 billion
That means four of the fifteen-strong billion brigade hit cinemas last year, with** Skyfall **and The Dark Knight Rises' earnings even more impressive considering they had no 3D bump, unlike The Hobbit and The Avengers. Titanic and Avatar, meanwhile, with $2 billion plus each, seem pretty much untouchable.
Perhaps, with The Return Of The King the biggest earner of the original Lord Of The Rings trilogy, we can expect the same to be the case with the final part of The Hobbit, There and Back Again, now aiming for a December 2014 release.
As for The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, that’s still on course to land on December 13 this year. For what to expect from the next two Hobbitses filmses, check out our 10 Things You'll See In The Hobbit 2 And 3 feature - and for a good ol' fashioned chuckle, have a look at this **Hobbit **supercut below.