The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is off to a smash hit start in Australia having opened on Boxing Day (December 26) — a national holiday observed by most of the country, Deadline said.

The sequel, which dominated the box office with a 60% market share of the top 5 films, grossed an estimated $4.9M in U.S. dollars from 629 screens. It holds the distinction as the second-biggest Boxing Day opening of all time, finishing 7% behind The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It also ranks as the biggest Thursday opening in Australia. Warner Bros’ Desolation Of Smaug opened about 10 days earlier in New Zealand (where Peter Jackson is making the Hobbit trilogy) with a four-day gross of $1.85M from 201 screens. That also logged a 10% higher box office gross than An Unexpected Journey’s record-breaking showing a year earlier. Smaug also gave the studio its biggest-ever weekend opening in Russia and opened in the top spot there with an estimated $18.8M from 2,115 screens, tracking ahead of the original. It has been No. 1 in Germany and has been outperforming the original Hobbit there and in France. The total take in the UK alone is more than $32M.

Overall, Smaug has had an outstanding performance internationally, with a total take last weekend of $278.4M so far in all markets to date. That number will continue to rise, of course. Worldwide cume is now easily over $430M (with mid-week and Christmas Day domestic estimates added in). Studio expectations are that the sequel will ultimately gross very close to the first Hobbit all in; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ended with a total international cume of $714.M.