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The biggest story this weekend, both because it's the number one film and because it augers several weekends of domination, is The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, which debuted in 38 territories ahead of its US bow on Wednesday. The final film (unless there are a couple more pages he forgot to adapt lying around) in Peter Jackson's second Tolkien trilogy earned a huge $117.6 million and opened higher in pretty much every territory than either of the previous Hobbit films. Since those films both earned more than $700 million overseas, it seems likely that the third will match that, if not exceed it.

Second is Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings. The sword and sandals epic earned $18.8 million from 28 territories, and it has $50.2 million after two weekends. The film opened to fairly middling numbers in the US, so it'll be interesting to see if the overseas numbers remain good enough to save its fortunes.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 is third this weekend as its initial foreign success is starting to slow. I say "initial" because the film still has some big territories in its future, but for the moment it took $16 million and has a total of $334 million.

In fourth place this week is Penguins of Madagascar, which added $14.7 million. The mild disappointment from DreamWorks has $116.7 million to date, which should mitigate its weak stateside showing, but it still needs at least another $200 million before it's even remotely safe. Needless to say, it's a bit of an uphill struggle.

Interstellar's best weekends are far behind it at this point, but that doesn't mean it can't add to its fantastic run. The Nolan film added $11.4 million, good for fifth place, and which brings its total to $455 million.

Right behind Interstellar is the much more modest Paddington. The British family film expanded into a lot more territories this weekend and earned $11 million, bringing its total to $45 million, which is pretty incredible for a film whose pre-release publicity was somewhat undermined by a shoddy trailer and posters that were most notable for how creepy they looked.

Seventh is Horrible Bosses 2, which earned $5.9 million and now has an overseas total of $32.2 million. The comedy sequel is doing worse than its predecessor both domestically and internationally, but its modest budget means that it shaping up to do all right.

The South Korean documentary My Love, Don't Cross That River is eighth this weekend. The film topped the Korean box office with $4.7 million, giving it $6.5 million after a few weeks, and is one of the more surprising smashes of the year since not only is it a documentary, but it's a documentary about a couple who have been married for 76 years. That probably qualifies it for the sweetest and weirdest entry in this column since its inception.

Big Hero 6 is at number nine this weekend with $3.9 million. The Disney release has accrued $68.2 million from foreign audiences and passed the $250 million mark globally, despite not really playing in any big markets.

Finally this week we have Gone Girl, a film which hasn't featured in this column for several weeks, but makes a return thanks to openings in Japan and Venezuela, where it earned $2.7 million. The David Fincher film has an international total of $180.5 million at this point, making it David Fincher's third biggest film internationally after Se7en and Benjamin Button, but it's his biggest globally when you add in the domestic total.