To the surprise of hopefully no one, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 decimated the box office to the tune of $123 million domestically: over $100 million more than it’s nearest competitor, Big Hero 6 which keeps going strong with a $20.1 million weekend.
A cool $123 million is nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s worth noting that the first two Hunger Games films made over $150 million each in their opening weekends and both released to critical praise. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 on the other hand, made nearly $30 million less in its opening weekend and reviews are ranging from mixed to poor, with a lot of critics citing that it feels like half of a movie instead of just half of a two-part story. Maybe this is the first sign of weakness in everyone’s least favorite practice of needlessly splitting the final part of trilogies into three movies? Probably not, sadly.
After a surprising opening weekend, Dumb and Dumber To has begun to plummet, bringing in $13.9 million over the weekend and dropping to number four behind Interstellar. Its 67% loss in revenue week-over-week is by the far the largest of the top 10 movies. Poor reviews and enough fans realizing that a 52-year-old Jim Carrey making fart jokes isn’t worth the $8.50 admission may have had something to do with the slow sophomore weekend for the film.
Rounding out the top five was Gone Girl, which continued going strong despite its theater presence diminishing rapidly.
Guardians of the Galaxy, which has already made $331 million domestically, got an unexpected surge popping up in 91 additional theaters over the weekend as it ramps up hype for its DVD/Blu-Ray release on December 9th.
The Steve Carell-lead drama Foxcatcher had a strong weekend despite its limited release. It only released in 24 additional theaters, up from a mere 5 last weekend, but still managed to bring in $474,000 for the weekend or $19,750 per theater. That average is second only to The Hunger Games’ bonkers $29,631 average – but it’s not hard to amass a huge average when your film makes over $120 million anyway.
Two other small films, The Theory of Everything and The Homesman had relatively strong weekends as well as their theater locations also expanded. They made $1.5 million and $140,000 respectively while being in less than 150 theaters nationwide.
Last year at this time the big winner of the weekend was – surprise! – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Katniss Everdeen’s second shot on the big screen proved a massive success, as it brought in $158 million. All told, the second Hunger Games film made $424.7 million domestically and $440 million globally. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 could still reach or beat that mark for sure, but it will attempt to do so with a $30 million handicap from the start.
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
