“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” has only been in theaters for a few hours now, but forecasts are already predicting that the latest epic from Peter Jackson will set a new box office record for a December release.

Thanks to the $13 million “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” made in its midnight release last evening, Box Office Mojo is reporting that the film is well on its way to breaking the mark currently held by “I Am Legend.” By comparison, “I Am Legend” brought in $77.2 million in its opening weekend back in 2007, only $1.7 million of which came from its midnight…

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You want to hear a story? Sure you do.

How do you want to see it?

I wanted to see The Hobbit in my preferred theater with friends and a few family members, and my six year old son. We did so last night, it was easy. This theaters is not showing The Hobbit in HFR. There are two options, The Hobbit 2D, The Hobbit 3D. We elected for the 2D experience, it was cheaper and easier to manage for our young son, not to mention my wife and I both prefer 2D.

But… this tale is just beginning.

HFR, IMAX and 3D, Oh My

I also wanted to have something to say about The Hobbit the way it’s director,…

I’ve got one more thing for you today. This is a preview for tonight’s episode of Fringe.

With The Hobbit being just freshly out in theaters, I wonder how many people will actually be tuning in tonight. I doubt I’ll be able to watch it this weekend at all. I’ll be seeing The Hobbit twice, once with friends at a standard showing. Then I’m driving way up yonder in Nashville to see it in HFR 3D IMAX tomorrow night. But I digress…

Here’s the Fringe clip.

It was a big week for trailers. In this episode, TJ highlights the upcoming film, ‘Parker’, a ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ Mashup trailer featuring the audio track from the official trailer, but imagery from the Original Series episode ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’, a ‘Wreck-it Ralph’ sequel in the works, the ‘After Earth’ and ‘Oblivion’ trailers, an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ sequel, the new ‘Lone Ranger’ trailer, , the new ‘Man of Steel’ trailer, Corey’s review of the 1989 Batman film, ‘Killing them Softly’ as a terrible film, the new trailer for ‘G.I. Joe 2’, the ‘Pacific Rim’ trailer, The MovieByte Podcast #22 in which TJ and Joe have a chance to talk with Melinda Snodgrass, screen writer for ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ and the writer for ‘The Measure of a Man’, a great TNG episode, and a new feature of MovieByte.com, ‘What to See’ in which we highlight the films playing in theaters.

Witless, unfocused, and arguably misogynistic as well as misandristic, Playing for Keeps is a dispiriting, lowest-common-denominator Hollywood rom-com.

It’s a wonder why decent actors get paired with fatuous productions, such as this one. If you care to know more about how poorly the film sells itself, then partake in the rest of my review.

“Dear Hollywood, Please make better movies. Thanks.” -Ron Kraus

I saw Ron’s comment on YouTube for the official release of Playing for Keeps’ trailer. And I want to parrot Ron. Hollywood, what were you thinking? Get it together.

Playing for…

Welcome to a new beta feature of MovieByte.com, What to See. I say this feature is in beta, not because I’m doing anything special in the CMS with the publishing of this feature, but because I don’t yet know how hard this will be to keep up with each week.

But I thought it would be fun to list a few of the fun films playing in theaters this weekend, and offer a line or two of opinion if we’ve seen the film, or our thoughts on what the film might be like if we haven’t yet seen it.

New Films

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Of course this is the big one this week. My misgivings…

Strap on your Spock ears, and run to these theaters!

Paramount Pictures has officially announced the domestic locations previewing the first nine minutes of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness in IMAX 3-D starting Friday.

If all goes well, we’ll be talking about this with a special guest on episode 23 of The MovieByte Podcast. I don’t want to say who just yet because he hasn’t confirmed, but tentatively said yes on Twitter.

Anyway, should be fun. I’m going to see The Hobbit this afternoon with friends at a standard screening, and will see it in IMAX HFR (hopefully, as best I can…

The as-yet-untitled “Tron 3” project gained a screenwriter last week, and now it has officially gained a star.

Garrett Hedlund confirmed to NextMovie exclusively that he would follow up his 2010 performance as Sam Flynn in “TRON: Legacy” by appearing in the long-rumored sequel, which may begin shooting in 2014, according to some sources.

“Yeah,” Hedlund said when we pressed him for details on his “Tron” participation while doing press in New York ahead of the U.S. release of “On the Road.” “Are we gonna break this now?”

“Disney’s very excited,” he said of the project. “That’s about…

10 years ago, Star Trek: Nemesis premiered with great expectations. It was being directed by veteran editor Stuart Baird, responsible for such films as Superman: The Movie, and it was written by arguably one of the most in-demand screenwriters of the day, John Logan, who was just coming off an Oscar win for Gladiator. Logan volunteered to write for Star Trek because he was such a big Next Generation fan. Nemesis featured a promising story by Rick Berman, Brent Spiner, and Logan that would reveal more about the history of the Romulan Star Empire. The entire main TNG crew of actors had…