'Hunger Games' Comes Good, 'Catching Fire' Sparks Big Box Office Numbers
As expected, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire dominated this weekend’s US box office with a dominant performance. Jennifer Lawrence n' co managed to break November records, while providing Lionsgate with their biggest opening ever.
Catching Fire, which has already hit the U.K with great success, and received unanimous praise from the critics, managed to accumulate $161.1 million over the weekend, topping the charts by a huge distance. The competition, however, wasn’t exactly fierce. Thor: The Dark World provided the sternest test, but still managed to pull in 10x less than Katniss with $14 million.
The Marvel hero can be forgiven though, considering the action-packed, Chris Hemsworth-starring film was in its third week of release.
In his review of Catching Fire, our very own Rich Cline said: "After 2012's The Hunger Games caught us off-guard with its subtle themes, this sequel more than lives up to the hype, dramatically expanding the scale of the action while letting the actors deepen their characters. It's a full-on action epic that cleverly retains author Suzanne Collins' narrative trick of telling the story through a flawed perspective. And it provides the needed push to give the whole saga real momentum."
Read our review for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire here
Jennifer shines, Vaughn is dim
"When the first film was released, there was this idea that it was going to appeal largely to young girls," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak. "But over time, it's skewing back toward male audiences. There's actually a lot of action, there's violence in the movie. It's crossing over to a much broader base." (CBS)
It was truly Jennifer Lawrence’s weekend. The Oscar-winning actress has been praised for her role in the second Hunger Games film, and not just for her performance. Many commentators believe her to be a positive role model for young girls, something that Miley Cyrus’s twerking, provocative music videos and raunchy behavior seems to have rendered rare.
Elsewhere, The Best Man Holiday grabbed $12 million, beating out Vince Vaughn’s Delivery Man in 4th. The comedy actor is enduring a terrible run; The Internship was a critical and financial mishit, hooking under $100m, while Delivery Man – which sees Vaughn father 533 children – has been roundly criticized, and opened with a meek $8 million.
Relatively’s Free Birds managed to stay in the top 5 despite fluttering about in its 4th week, and you can check out the rest of the top 10 below:
1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: $161. million
2. Thor: The Dark World: $14.12 million
3. The Best Man Holiday: $12.5 million
4. Delivery Man: $8.2 million
5. Free Birds: $5.3 million
6. Last Vegas: $4.4 million
7. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa: $3.45 million
8. Gravity: $3.3 million
9. 12 Years a Slave: $2.8 million
10. Dallas Buyers Club: $2.77 million