Numbers Don’t Lie :: ‘The Hunger Games’ Wins Big In The Box Office

This might be a Rest In Peace for Twilight, Spiderman and Pirates of the Caribbean (or at least for now). The new novel based movie, ‘The Hunger Games,’ was a box-office smash over the weekend. The movie raked in $214 million globally ($155 million from the United States and Canada, alone). The film, produced by Lions Gate, brings the production company its first blockbuster despite predictions that the film would only gross about $125 million during its opening weekend. Hunger Games is now known as the highest opening for a non-sequel film AND the biggest opening outside of the summer season. The movie joins Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and The Dark Knight in the top 3 biggest of all-time opening weekends. No other movie has made Hollywood boom this much with its initial debut. It took Harry Potter seven movies to get to this point of success and Batman years to build its brand. Although the movie is being compared to the novel based films in the ‘Twilight Saga‘, those teen vampires and wolves don’t even stand a chance next to the Hunger Games. In the opening weekend “Hunger Games” grossed more than ALL four of Twilight’s opening releases. This may be because 56 percent of moviegoers for the ‘Hunger Games’ were adults over the age of 25, whereas Twilight appealed more to teenaged girls. David Spitz, executive vice president of domestic distribution for Lions Gate, spoke on the success the movie is receiving. He stated,

And don’t worry; for those who are hungry for more Hunger Games, the sequel, ‘Catching Fire,’ is already in the works and set to be released in November 2013.

[E! Online, Reuters]

–India Renee