I feel The Hobbit will win because it's in 3D and people outside of USA love The Hobbit more than Batman. Still, we'll have to wait and see to see who does come out on top for real.

I'm looking forward to both movies as well!

I agree with the thinking that TDKR will beat out The Hobbit. Should be close, but I see TDKR getting the edge.

The thing is, finales for popular franchises (and box office monsters) usually outperform everything that year and surpass the previous movies in the franchise. This especially holds true for franchises that are so critically acclaimed such as Nolan's Batman series. So, I'd expect TDKR to surpass Dark Knight, probably getting somewhere up near 1.2 Billion.

Some may argue that the only reason Dark Knight did so well was because of Ledger. I disagree. It did well because of the word of mouth about how good Batman Begins was, plus the marketing behind the movie (it just happens Ledger was a big part of the marketing focus). Some even argue that Bane isn't as popular as Joker. Maybe not, but there's one thing people seem to be overlooking....this is the final Batman from Nolan, and they are seriously teasing that Bane could possibly kill Batman or at least seriously injure him ("The Legend Ends").

Now, The Hobbit kind of has the appeal of being a sequel, but at the same time not. It's a completely new story. So, while it will return fans, it's not going to get the boost of a finale because nobody is invested in that particular story yet (Part 2 of The Hobbit will break records on the other hand).

Then you have the 3D argument. Sorry, but 3D attendance is waning. Granted The Hobbit will be one of the big ones to get people to actually return to 3D for that one movie, but you still have a bunch that are just tired of it and will just opt to go 2D. Furthermore, while Hobbit has 3D, TDKR has IMAX (a medium that hasn't NEARLY been run into the ground as 3D). And last I checked around here IMAX tickets are actually more than regular theaters' 3D tickets by a dollar or two. And trust, people are going to flock to IMAX this one time for TDKR.

As cloud mentioned above as well, TDKR gets a summer release. So it will undoubtedly get a boost from that. And while The Hobbit will have more international appeal, TDKR has more domestic appeal (and still has plenty of international appeal as well).

So, while it will be a tight race, I figure TDKR to come out the winner worldwide, and it will be the winner by a much bigger margin domestically speaking.

A couple to look out for, though: Twilight and Ice Age. Those two won't compete with Hobbit or Dark Knight, but I could actually see both beating Spider-Man and Avengers in worldwide numbers. Twilight will be the last so the fans will be eating it up. Meanwhile, Ice Age continues to be a monster internationally and could possibly get $600-700Million from overseas alone.

I actually see Avengers being the bigger disappointment. People seem to think this is going to do huge numbers. Some even make it out like they expect it to get near the billion mark. It's not going to happen. I'm honestly not even sure it surpasses Iron Man 3.