The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opened huge this weekend, with a $161 million dollar debut that makes it good for the fourth best opening weekend of all time, behind The Avengers, Iron Man 3, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. The first film opened with $152 million, which this one handily beat, and it played to a slightly broader audience. Still mostly female of course, but split evenly among age groups over and under 25, and with more men than the first Hunger Games. With very good reviews and word of mouth (an "A" Cinemascore), it should play well for the rest of the holiday season, especially with next weekend being Thanksgiving, and may surpass the original Hunger Games' $408 million total.
In second place was Thor, which fell 61% to $14 million and will now gross just over $200 million total, which isn't that impressive considering the big opening weekend, and in third was The Best Man Holiday, which also fell a steep 58% to $12 million, despite its A+ rating from audiences. The smaller budget film will still be profitable of course, because it cost just $17 million to produce. The poorly reviewed Vince Vaughn comedy Delivery Man opened in fourth to a weak $8 million, continuing his recent string of disappointments at the box office, and rounding out the top five was Free Birds, with $5 million.
Top 5
- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire- $161.1 million
- Thor: The Dark World- $14.1 million
- The Best Man Holiday- $12.5 million
- Delivery Man- $8.2 million
- Free Birds- $5.3 million
Next week, the only real competition against Catching Fire will be Disney's Frozen, the latest entry in their Disney Princess canon, which is already earning some good notices for being an actual feminist fairy tale for once. But Catching Fire will be expected to dominate over the long holiday weekend, as other openers are Black Nativity and Homefront. See you then!
