Box Office: 'Catching Fire' Delivers Biggest November Opening in History
Credit: Lionsgate
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire hasn't simply caught fire, it's set the world ablaze.
The big budget sequel has amassed $307.7 million globally, and delivered the biggest November opening of all-time in North America, taking in $161.1 million. This surpasses the former record-holder, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which opened with $142.8 million in 2009. In addition, the Jennifer Lawrence/Josh Hutcherson-starring action pic has achieved the fourth-biggest opening in history after The Avengers ($207.4 million), Iron Man 3 ($174.1 million) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 ($169.2 million).
The international success is largely attributable to Lionsgate, which producer Nina Jacobson has confirmed was much more aggressive in its global marketing initiative, with the worldwide premiere tour becoming a spectacle in itself. "They really shifted the orientation to a global orientation," said Jacobson. "I'm incredibly thrilled with the domestic numbers, but I think we are all really excited to see the international plan paying off."
As a point of comparison, the first Hunger Games movie peaked at $408 million domestically and $283.2 million internationally, yet Catching Fire is well on its way to surpassing those totals, cementing the franchise as a force to be reckoned with in the film industry. Really, the only film franchises capable of giving The Hunger Games a run for its money are the collected films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. All other viable challengers are recently-departed, such as the Harry Potter series, The Twilight Saga, and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. In essence, The Hunger Games has a huge slice of the cinematic zeitgeist entirely to itself, having attained cultural icon status in a relatively short amount of time.
From there, it's a steep drop-off in earnings for the other films in the top 10 this week. Thor: The Dark World remained impressively strong in the face of The Hunger Games slaughter, raking in a commendable $14.1 million to place at No. 2. Meanwhile, Christmas comedy The Best Man Holiday, director Malcolm D. Lee's sequel to his 1999 film The Best Man, took the No. 3 spot, grossing $12.5 million in its second weekend to bring its domestic total to $50.4 million.
The No. 4 spot went to the weekend's only other new entry, the Vince Vaughn-starring comedy Delivery Man. Despite the top 5 showing, this isn't exactly considered a success for the Dreamworks comedy, which took in a slight $8.2 million, a fraction of its $22 million budget. This marks the worst nationwide debut of Vaughn's career for a film debuting in over 1,000 theaters. Thankfully for Dreamworks and Disney, the meager budget reduces the risk considerably. In addition, the film appears to be generally well-liked among audiences, which could translate to strong word-of-mouth once The Hunger Games fervor dies down a bit.
Rounding out the top five was the animated Thanksgiving family comedy Free Birds, which grossed $5.3 million for a North American total of $48.6 million.
The full top 10:
1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($160.6 million)
2. Thor: The Dark World ($14.4 million)
3) The Best Man Holiday ($12.8 million)
4) Delivery Man ($8.2 million)
5) Free Birds ($5.3 million)
6) Last Vegas ($4.3 million)
7) Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa ($3.4 million)
8 ) Gravity ($3.3 million)
9) 12 Years A Slave ($2.8 million)
10) Dallas Buyers Club ($2.7 million)
Via: Deadline / The Hollywood Reporter