With her return as the heroine Katniss Everdine, Golden Globe winning actress Jennifer Lawrence once again won over the vast legion of Games fans. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1, the third filmed adaptation of author Suzanne Collins’ iconic
young-adult novels, made the year’s biggest domestic opening with its $123 million
Thursday – Sunday debut.
While it didn’t reach the $152 and $158 million benchmarks set by the first two installments in the hit series, this figure is certainly nothing to be a shamed of. It sits more than $20 million ahead of 2014’s second biggest domestic opener Transformers: Age of Extinction, and almost $28 million ahead of the third biggest debutant, Captain Amierca: The Winter Soldier. In fact, it had the 15th biggest opening weekend of all time.
An A- Cinemascore, along with a relatively unimposing slate of new films over the coming Thanksgiving holiday, give Mockingjay a chance of moving past Transformers 4 to become the year’s second biggest North American release, although there may not be enough time left for it to overtake Guardians of the Galaxy’s spectacular $331 million run. While there was some room for tentative criticism of this film’s domestic performance, its overseas numbers are beyond reproach. It opened in every major international market save for China ad Japan, earning $152 millions as fans around the world flocked to showings of Mockingjay in 85 countries.
Like the first two films its biggest foreign territory was the UK, where it finished first with $19.9 million. It made $13.5 million in Germany, also finishing first. Russia was good for $11.1 million. This is 19% higher than Catching Fire’s release last year. France brought in $10.5 million while in Italy the film earned $5.4 million. Mexico was the strongest territory in Latin America with $12.1 million, followed by Brazil at $8.8 million.
While it is unlikely to join Transformers 4 as the second member of the billion-dollar club from the class of ‘14, all in all the picture made a remarkable $275 million in 5 days. And it proved it has also some political overtone: it was pulled from theatres in Thailand, where students used showings as a gathering point to protest the military government of General Prayuth Chan-ocha.
Second place overall went to Interstellar as Christopher Nolan’s cosmic blockbuster finished its third frame with an $85 million domestic and international cumulative. A successful repeat weekend in China brought $30.6 million, while an unlikely $10.1 million came from its sophomore frame in South Korea. It picked up $2.9 million in the UK, and $2.4 million a piece in both Germany and France. It made $2 million in Russia and $1.9 million in Australia, while Italy was good for $1.6 million. It dropped to third in the US, where it picked up $15.1 million.
Big Hero 6 was third on the combined table. It beat Interstellar yet again on the domestic charts, finishing second with $20 million. Its international take of $7 million however was well below that of its box-office rival. After three weeks in theatres, this Disney animation feature has a combined cumulative of $185.2 million.
Dumb and Dumber To had a significant drop in its second domestic weekend, finishing fourth with $13.8 million. Its international take was $6.5 million.
Fury, meanwhile, enjoyed a $12.9 million overseas frame thanks to its Chinese release. It made $1.9 million at home, where it finished eight in its sixth domestic frame.
On the specialty market Foxcatcher made $474 thousand from 24 theatres for an outstanding per-screen average of $19,764. Birdman, in its sixth frame, moved into five more theatres this weekend and finished ninth on the domestic chart with $1.85 million.
Thanksgiving week will see the release of The Penguins of Madagascar, as well as
Horrible Bosses 2.
Lorenzo Soria