‘Hunger Games’ Crushes Weekend Box Office, Expectations

It’s a good day for the producers behind The Hunger Games! The Hunger Games slaughtered the box office by taking in an estimated $155 million dollars its debut weekend. That amount makes it the third highest opening weekend of all time behind The Dark Knight ($159 million) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two ($169 million).

Not only did the film do exceptionally well over the entire span of the weekend, it also now holds the record for highest-grossing midnight opening for a non-sequel grossing an estimated $20 million. To compare the first Twilight brought in $7 million its initial midnight showing.

The Hunger Games, which is based on the first in a young adult novel trilogy by Suzanne Collins, currently holds an 86% on RottenTomatoes with an imdb.com user rating of 8.0. I think I can safely say that the other two books in the series, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, are on the fast track to theaters in the near future.

While there was certainly hype surrounding the film, few people expected The Hunger Games to have this type of impact during its opening weekend. In distant second behind the $155 million juggernaut was 21 Jump Street ($21.3 million), followed by The Lorax ($13.1 million). Other new releases kept their distance with only independent films opening alongside Hunger Games this weekend.

Will Hunger Games dominate once again next weekend, or will Wrath of the Titans or Mirror Mirror be able to dethrone it from being #1?

What did you think of The Hunger Games? Leave a comment and let us know!

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