The previous opening weekend record in November was 2009’s The Twilight Saga: New Moon with $142.8 million. In fact the first three slots belonged to members of the Twilight family followed by three Harry Potter features. Well, it looks like that’s just the right place for what are clearly the three most popular young adult franchises of all-time as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has smashed that New Moon record, bringing in an estimated $161.1 million (includes $12.6 million from IMAX) this weekend accompanied by an “A” CinemaScore and an additional $146.6 million internationally. That opening is enough to become one of the top five openers of all-time. Here’s the list:
- The Avengers (2012) – $207.4 million
- Iron Man 3 (2013) – $174.1 million
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011) – $169.1 million
- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) – $161.1 million (estimated)
- The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – $160.8 million
As you’ll note from the numbers, should Catching Fire hold that slim $300,000 lead it has over The Dark Knight Rises it will be the highest grossing 2D ever, not adjusted for inflation of course.
In franchise terms, The Hunger Games opened in March 2012 with $152.5 million and, like all of these front-loaded features, dropped 61.6% in its second weekend. Based on reviews and early audience reactions, Catching Fire is clearly perceived as a superior film to the first, but I expect it too will face a rather steep drop next weekend, but it’s already off to an impressive start.
In second was Thor: The Dark World, which dipped another 61% to $14.1 million and it now sits at $167.8 million domestically after three weekends in theaters. The film is now just shy of $550 million worldwide, already $100 million more than the first Thor in 2011.
Dropping a little more than I would think most expected, The Best Man Holiday dipped 58%, coming in with $12.5 million following its strong opening last weekend, which was accompanied by an “A+” CinemaScore. Would have thought word of mouth would be a little better than that, but with a $17 million budget and a third film already confirmed to be on the way, I think they’re doing just fine.
The weekend’s other new wide release was Delivery Man starring Vince Vaughn and deliver it did not. The Starbuck remake garnered only $8.2 million from 3,036 theaters and a fourth place debut.
In limited release, Philomena opened in only four theaters and brought in a very strong $133,716, which is $33,429 per theater for the Weinsteins Oscar hopeful.
Speaking of limited releases, Disney’s Frozen opened in Los Angeles’ El Capitan theatre where it managed a massive $238,000 from that one location. Why? Because some tickets sold for as much as $51 for VIP treatment, which included a breakfast, popcorn, soft drink, reserved seating and no waiting in line.
Finally, Dallas Buyers Club eked into the tenth spot over Ender’s Game with $2.7 million after adding 482 theaters this weekend, it’s now up to 666 theaters, scoring a $4,159 per theater average this weekend. After four weeks it’s up to $6.4 million.
Next weekend Philomena will expand to around 500 theaters and Frozen will go wide along with the Wednesday releases of Homefront, Oldboy and Black Nativity while Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom opens on Friday.
