For Hollywood, it’s the most wonderful time of the year.
The major movie studios are counting on a blockbuster Christmas Day — which traditionally kicks off one of their most lucrative weeks at the box office — to propel them to a record year.
An unusually high number of Christmas openings this week — eight versus five on the last year that Christmas Day fell on a Tuesday — along with enough variety to appeal to just about any moviegoer, is expected to pack theaters.
In particular, today’s two big movie openings for “Les Misérables” and “Django Unchained” have people eager to trade their turkey for buttered popcorn.
“I don’t think we’ve had a Christmas like this one with so many movies coming out on Christmas Day,” said Fandango spokesman Harry Medved.
Some New Yorkers had a tough time yesterday getting tickets for Universal’s “Les Misérables,” a musical starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway.
It was the No. 1 advance ticket-seller among all Christmas Day releases and could surpass the previous record-holder, 2009’s “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” according to Fandango.
“This film has fired up a lot of people,” Medved said. “The play is several decades old, but it’s going really well around the country.”
Added Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com’s Box Office division: “This thing is tracking like it will blow the doors off and could wind up with the second-biggest Christmas Day debut, with a gross in the high teens.”
Warner Bros.’ “Sherlock Holmes,” which took in $24.6 million in 2009, and Fox’s “Marley and Me,” with $14.4 million in 2008, are the previous record-holders for biggest Christmas Day openings. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” took in $11.9 million, also in 2008.
Boxoffice.com’s Phil Contrino is penciling in “Les Misérables” with a four-day, post-Christmas weekend of $26 million, while Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” from the Weinstein Co., could bag a similar amount.
Dergarabedian added that Twentieth Century Fox’s “Parental Guidance “should do well with its PG rating and its appeal to the family crowd after opening the gifts on Christmas morning.” (Fox, like The Post, is owned by News Corp.)
December got off to a roaring start with “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” which took in $84.5 million during its opening weekend, making it the biggest December opening on record.
Box office trackers are saving their year-end predictions until they see how the coming weekend plays out, but it looks like this year will outpace the record set in 2009, when Hollywood took in $10.6 billion.
Boxofficemojo.com has Tinseltown taking in $10.4 billion year-to-date, up 6 percent over last year. This year’s crop of films, topped by “The Avengers,” has already beat last year’s $10.1 billion, when “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” was the top flick.
“It’s certainly going to be a strong weekend and will put a cap on a phenomenal year,” said Boxoffice.com’s Contrino. “The high note is, 2012 will be up over 2011 and will top 2009, which is the highest to this point in terms of pure dollars.”
catkinson@nypost.com
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