‘The Hunger Games’ rakes in $155M at box office opening weekend, third highest in history

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‘The Hunger Games’ rakes in $155M at box office opening weekend, third highest in history - ThatHustle.com
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The arrow was pointed straight up for “The Hunger Games” at the box office this weekend.

The film earned a record-shattering $155 million at the box office in its debut weekend, the third-highest total in history and the highest ever for a non-sequel. Only last year’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” ($169.2 million) and 2008’s “The Dark Knight” ($158.4 million) finished with higher openings.
“This is totally unprecedented, this is a non sequel so there was no track record going in,” says Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com. “There were no previous films to build up an audience, there was just the popularity of the book, the sheer power of the marketing and on top of that, it was a really good movie.”

Even studio execs in their rosiest estimates going into the weekend were surprised by the enormity of the numbers.
“When we went to bed Saturday night, we thought it would be $135 to $140 million, just because the numbers usually drop by 45-55% later in the weekend, but the numbers kept holding,” David Spitz, executive vice president of distribution at Lionsgate told the News.
Finishing in a distant second place, but with a respectable $23.1 million, was last week’s box office champ, Sony’s “21 Jump Street.” Universal’s animated eco-fable “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax” kept earning green, finishing third with $13.1 million to bring its total haul to $177.3 million.
Moviegoers showed such a voracious appetite for “The Hunger Games” that it easily eclipsed the opening of “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” movies, the high water mark in the pop culture phenomenon that had been used as a measuring stick going into the weekend. But unlike “Twilight,” even older audiences flocked to the movie – the studio’s tracking showed 56% of ticket-buyers were 25 or over.

The movie also easily set the studio’s all-time record for total box office, surpassing previous title-holder “Fahrenheit 9/11’s” total of $119.2 million mid-way through the weekend.

“Just based on the results, it's number three of all time, for us it's a game-changer,” says Spitz.

More: ‘The Hunger Games’ rakes in $155M at box office opening weekend, third highest in history - ThatHustle.com

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