The Hobbit brought home box office treasure over the weekend, setting a December movie record with $84.77 million (€64 million) in US and Canadian ticket sales as fans turned out for the long-awaited return to Middle Earth.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey also rang up sales of $138.2 million in international markets.

Global receipts for the prequel to the smash Lord of the Rings trilogy stood at $222.97 million through Sunday, distributor Warner Bros said.

The current projection for the total box-office take this year is $10.8 billion, according to an estimate from Hollywood.com, which would beat the $10.6 billion record in 2009.

The film, directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson, tells the story of what happens in the early part of the 1937 classic novel by JRR Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings movies debuted in theatres from 2001 to 2003. After that, production on The Hobbit ran into delays, leaving fans waiting a decade for another look at the Tolkien’s fantasy world.

Warner Bros aims to build on the success of the Rings series, one of Hollywood’s biggest franchises with $2.9 billion in ticket sales. –(Reuters)