Texas Chainsaw 3D, the R-rated franchise title from Lionsgate, managed to wrest the top spot away from The Hobbit and Django Unchained on 2013’s inaugural weekend. The horror film’s estimate of $23 million from 2,654 locations was a bit higher than expected, though probably not high enough to ensure box office longevity. Leatherface aside, the New Year looked suspiciously like Christmas as holiday-holdovers stretched their legs.

2012’s box office ended with a record-breaking total of $10.83 billion; but as of Wednesday we wiped that slate clean for another year. In a repeat of 2012, the first weekend of the New Year features just one nationwide release and – also like 2012 – that release belongs to the horror genre. Texas Chainsaw 3D, the sixth feature in the “Texas Chainsaw” franchise, opened in 2,654 locations at 10 pm on Thursday. With a first-day estimate of $10.2 million, Texas Chainsaw 3D should top $20 million by Sunday. That’s far short of the $33.7 million The Devil Inside earned at this time last year; though anything over $15 million would beat industry expectations. A debut north of $20 million would also be enough to give Texas Chainsaw 3D the win over December’s holdovers. After three weekends at number one, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is expected to fall to third place, with Django Unchained in second. Projections are very close among this weekend’s top four titles, however, so check back tomorrow to see how 2013’s first box office winds up.

The nominations for the 2013 Producers Guild Awards have been announced.  The PGA’s are a fairly reliable predictor of the Academy Awards, as last year all but two eventual Best Picture nominees (The Tree of Life and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) were PGA nominees.  This year’s contenders include expected fare like Argo, Les Miserables, and Lincoln, indies such as Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom, and critical favorite Zero Dark Thirty.  The PGA’s are also fond of singling out one “popular” choice, and in this year’s case that film looks to be the excellent Skyfall

In addition to the feature films, the PGAs also announced the nominees in television.  Drama series nominees include the usual suspects like Homeland, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones, while the comedy category is filled out by 30 Rock, Louie, Modern Family, and for some reason The Big Bang Theory.  Notably absent is HBO’s Girls and NBC’s brilliant Parks and Recreation.  Hit the jump to check out the full list of film and television nominees.  The 24th Annual PGA Awards will be held on January 26th.

Writer/director Quentin Tarantino’s Western Django Unchained finally hit theaters last week, and thankfully the film is really damn good.  The pic struck a chord with critics and audiences alike, as it even edged out Les Miserables to take the number two spot at the box office last weekend just behind The Hobbit.  Both Dave and I included Django on our Top 10 lists this year, and one of my favorite aspects of the pic was the soundtrack.  Tarantino is known for assembling diverse and sometimes-anachronistic soundtracks to accompany his films, but Django Unchained just might be my favorite collection of songs he’s put together thus far.

The full soundtrack is now available online with a track-by-track commentary from Tarantino himself.  The director always considers crafting his soundtracks an important part of his process, and it’s a joy to hear him talk about the different choices on this commentary.  Hit the jump to check it out, and click here to listen to Frank Ocean’s original song that was scrapped from the soundtrack.

This week on The Collision, we’ll be talking about race in films, depictions of slavery, how white filmmakers approach slavery, Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained, the film’s heavy use of the n-word, and much more.  It’s a heavy topic to close out the new year, but it’s a great discussion with our special guest, Atlanta Film Festival Artistic Director, Charles Judson (@CharlesJudson)

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for the previous episode (“Comedy, Judd Apatow, and This Is 40“), click here to add the podcast to your RSS, and click here to find us on iTunes. To keep up to date with The Collision, you can follow us on Twitter at @MattGoldberg, @AdamChitwood, and @DrClawMD (Dave Trumbore). Hit the jump to check out the trailers for this week’s recommendations.

To try something new with our top 10 lists this year, we opened up a readers poll where you could vote for your 10 favorite movies of 2012.  The tallies are in: 3,760 of you from over 100 different countries racked up 28,375 total votes.  Your top ten of the year are The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, Skyfall, Looper, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Django Unchained, Argo, The Cabin in the Woods, Moonrise Kingdom, and Prometheus.

The two superhero giants were always a lock for the top spots, but I was surprised to find that a true majority of our readers voted for The Dark Knight Rises (59.9%) and The Avengers (55.4%).  It’s nice to see that not everything on the list is a blockbuster, as so many of you found room for the likes of The Cabin in the Woods (25.7%) and Moonrise Kingdom (21.9%).  Hit the jump for the full breakdown of the votes, including a comparison of American votes and international votes.

While I stuck to my genre-loving guns in my Top 10 Films of 2012 and Top 10 Trailers of 2012, I’m happy to branch out a bit more with respect to the year’s ten best movie posters.  Here’s where I get pretentious.  Posters have the difficult task of attracting attention, holding it long enough to convey a message and getting that message across without the use of sound or motion (normally).  I prefer posters that are minimalist in nature and leave you with an iconic image that you’ll forever associate with the film.  Bonus points are given to those posters that offer layered meanings tied into the movie in question and which inspire curiosity in the picture.  What follows are the year’s ten best posters from a mix of big budget and lesser known movies.  Hit the jump to check them out.

It looks like Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has outpaced the competition to take the top spot in 2012′s final box office with $32.9 million.  Opening films Django Unchained, Les Miserables and Parental Guidance followed in box office order with Jack Reacher rounding out the top five.

There’s a bit of silliness to a “Top 10″ list.  It’s similar to giving letter grades to movies.  We’re grading art, and trying to standardize a subjective appraisal.  But perhaps the grade can be instructive.  I always hope that my grade will guide you to read the full review, and then to the movie whether I liked it or not.  I think people should see as many movies as possible, but I know that’s not realistic.  Tickets cost too much, audiences are increasingly rude (I can’t remember the last time I went to a non-press or non-Drafthouse screening, and someone didn’t take out his or her cell phone), and the amount of entertainment options can be overwhelming.  That’s where I think a Top 10 list matters.  If you see only ten movies this year, these are the ones you should check out.  I found them moving, funny, thoughtful, and enduring.  I hope you’ll feel the same way.

Hit the jump for my Top 10 films of 2012.  Please note that to make the list, the film had to receive a theatrical release in 2012.  Click on the respective links for my Best of 2012, Top 10 Trailers, Dave’s Top 10 Films, and Adam’s Top 10 Films.

While Jamie Foxx plays the title character in Django Unchained, Leonardo DiCaprio steals the show as the villainous plantation runner and slave owner, Calvin Candie.  This new featurette shows director Quentin Tarantino and cast members Foxx, Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson commenting on the amazing performance by DiCaprio.  It interesting to see how the veteran actor approached the difficult subject matter and to hear the actors talk about his transformation.  The featurette also highlights some footage from the movie, so if you haven’t seen Django Unchained yet, this may have a few spoilers for you.  Otherwise, hit the jump to watch the video.

It became clear around September that putting together a Top 10 list this year was going to be incredibly difficult.  We’ve been provided with an embarrassment of riches throughout the year, and so the prospect of whittling it down to a list of my ten favorites proved daunting.  2012 seems destined to go down in history as “one of those years” like 1999, 1994, or 1977, where a large number of the year’s offerings will stand the test of time.  Though this list expresses what films I connected with most out of the past 12 months, there are at least 10 or 15 other movies that I also really enjoyed waiting just outside the wings.  If forced to pick my ten favorites from 2012, though, this is what I’ve come up with.  Hit the jump to take a look.

As most of our regular readers may have figured out from our quarterly “Most Anticipated” articles, my movie preferences heavily favor the genre films. I’m a fan of spectacle, big action, larger-than-life characters and borderline-ridiculous premises. I’m always happy to see great performances on screen, but as long as I’m having some sort of visceral response to the film in question, it works for me. I’m not artsy or indie, I don’t have access to festivals and screeners; I’m out there in the ticket lines and sub-par theaters like the majority of the blue-collars out there. It’s a foregone conclusion that you will disagree with me, so be sure to vote for your own top ten here. You’ll find my ten favorite movies from 2012 after the jump.

Three additional titles piled into theatres on Christmas Day, capping off the busiest box office week of 2012. As expected, Universal’s Les Miserables was Tuesday’s clear winner, earning an estimated $18.2 million from 2,808 locations. Django Unchained placed second with just over $15 million from 3,010 locations – beating the $14.3 million debut of Inglourious Basterds to become the best opening ever for director Quentin Tarantino. After eleven days on top, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey fell to third place with $11.3 million, though that still placed it well ahead of Christmas Day’s final gift. The Fox comedy Parental Guidance had the widest release of the day (3,358 locations) but still wound up in fourth with an estimated $6.4 million.

Legendary director Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is exactly what the trailer promises – exciting, violent, satirical, vengeful, and shocking – for the entire 2 hour and 45 minute run time.  Jamie Foxx stars as Django, a newly freed slave who sets out with an unlikely partner, dentist-turned-bounty-hunter Dr. King Schultz, (Christoph Waltz) to find and rescue Django’s wife (Kerry Washington).  Django Unchained follows the duo as they track her to a plantation owned by vicious playboy Calvin Candie (a ferocious Leonardo DiCaprio), whose long time family slave, Stephen (an almost unrecognizable Samuel L. Jackson), is also out for blood.  Fans of the director will not be disappointed; this film is everything we hoped for and more.  Click here to watch three clips, Matt’s review, here’s all our previous coverage.

When we spoke to Foxx and Washington at the recent NYC press junket, they talked about how they got involved in the film, their initial reactions to the news they got the parts, Foxx’s process of writing a song for the soundtrack with Rick Ross, and deleted scenes they were sad to see go, including a scene between Jackson and Washington, and a longer scene with DiCaprio.  Continued after the jump.

The soundtrack for Django Unchained is one of my favorite of the year, and I highly recommend picking it up.  There’s a great blend of hip-hop, blues, and Spaghetti western-tunes.  One track that didn’t make the final was Frank Ocean‘s “Wiseman”.  Director Quentin Tarantino told Pitchfork [via THR], “I could have thrown it in quickly just to have it, but that’s not why he wrote it and not his intention. So I didn’t want to cheapen his effort. But, the song is fantastic, and when Frank decides to unleash it on the public, they’ll realize it then.”

Ocean has decided to unleash it on the public, and you can click here to listen to it.  The R&B artist noted on his Tumblr, “django was ill without it.”