Catching Fire Dominates Competition

Lionsgate Entertainment’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire dominated the box office last weekend (Nov. 22-24) with an opening weekend performance of $158.07 million. The highly anticipated blockbuster sequel starring Jennifer Lawrence opened on the lower end of expectations. Catching Fire was able to outpace the $152.54 million debut of last year’s The Hunger Games by a slim 4 percent. It also set a record for the largest ever unadjusted opening weekend for November, which previously was the $142.84 million debut of 2009’s The Twilight Saga: New Moon. The film registered the sixth largest unadjusted opening weekend of all-time (behind only last year’s Marvel’s The Avengers, this year’s Iron Man 3, 2011’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, The Dark Knight Rises and The Dark Knight).

Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson, left), Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson, center and Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, right) in The Hunger Game: Catching Fire. (Photo: Murray Close/Lionsgate)

After leading the box office for the previous two weekends, Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World slid to a distant second place with $14.196 million. The blockbuster Marvel superhero sequel fell 61 percent from the previous weekend, as it took a significant hit from Catching Fire’s debut. Thor: The Dark World still grossed a healthy $167.92 million in 17 days. That is 15.5 percent stronger than the $145.36 million 17-day take of 2011’s Thor.

Universal Pictures’ The Best Man Holiday also experienced a sharp decline last weekend. After its opening weekend’s better than expected start, the modestly budgeted comedy sequel was down 58.5 percent to gross $12.49 million last weekend. It grossed $50.36 million in its first 10 days of release. The Best Man Holiday should stabilize over the holiday, although it will also face added competition from Fox Searchlight’s Black Nativity when it debuts on Wednesday.

Delivery Man with Vince Vaughn was off to a tough start last weekend with a fourth place take of $7.94 million. The comedy from Disney Studios and DreamWorks debuted a bit below expectations. Opening against Catching Fire and Vaughn’s dwindling drawing power at the box office in recent years proved to be a poor combination.

Early results were far more promising for fellow Disney Studios’ release Frozen. The latest 3D computer animated film from Walt Disney Animation grossed $243,390 from its exclusive Los Angeles engagement at the El Capitan theatre. Frozen opens in wide release on Wednesday.