Catching Fire, Frozen Sweep Holiday

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and the new animated blockbuster Frozen dominated the attention and wallets of audiences selling a jaw-dropping $203 million worth of tickets over the five-day Wednesday-to-Sunday period. They generated the two largest grosses ever seen for the holiday frame and accounted for two-thirds of all movie spending over the long weekend. Other new releases got the leftovers.

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

Staying on top for the second week, Catching Fire was red hot and held up better than other major book sequels have earning $74.18 million over three days (Nov. 29-Dec. 1) and $110.2 million over the five-day holiday. Both figures set new records for Thanksgiving beating the $57.5 million and $82.4 million of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone from 2001 when the first wizard movie was in its second weekend. Catching Fire has a 10-day take of $296.30 million.

Disney’s newest animated feature Frozen also enjoyed a record-breaking debut. The PG-rated film brought in $67.39 million three days and $93.93 million over five days with both figures breaking the records for largest Thanksgiving opening ever. The milestone had been held since 1999 by Toy Story 2 which captured $57.4 million in three days and $80.1 million in five days. Disney often uses Thanksgiving to launch a major kidpic, but the results this time were beyond spectacular. The three-day take nearly matched the $68.7 million five-day debut of the studio’s Tangled from 2010.

In its fourth weekend, Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World collected $11.09 million for a domestic take of $187.92 million surpassing the $181 million of its 2011 predecessor. Fellow sequel The Best Man Holiday slipped to $8.17 million bring its total take to $63.09 million so far.

Fast & Furious 7 star Jason Statham’s latest offering Homefront debuted in fifth with $6.92 million. Its five-day gross was $9.74 million. Vince Vaughn’s comedy Delivery Man held up well in its second weekend but still has brought in modest numbers. The Disney release earned $6.84 million for a $19.36 million total after 10 days.

A couple of new wide releases with mixed reviews followed with each taking a small slice of the overall Thanksgiving pie. The drama The Book Thief expanded nationwide going from 70 to 1,234 theaters and grossed $4.86 million. The five-day gross was $6.4 million and the total $7.86 million. Black Nativity, the musical drama starring Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Tyrese Gibson and Mary J. Blige did not draw much of a crowd opening to $3.67 million over three days and $4.78 million over five.

The well-reviewed Judi Dench drama Philomena went wide into 835 theaters from four and took in $3.68 million. The PG-13 film has banked $4.64 million to date for The Weinstein Co. Moviegoers had no interest in Spike Lee’s American remake of Oldboy, which debuted to $885,032 from 583 sites. Reviews were not so great for the FilmDistrict release, which had $1.28 million in sales since its Wednesday launch. Opening such a dark story over a holiday weekend when audiences demand happy and cheery films was a big gamble from the day it got moved from its previous release date of Oct. 25.