Box Office: 'Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1' Destroys Competition
It's two weeks in a row at No. 1 for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1!
The movie destroyed the competition at the box office for the five-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend, raking in $82.7 million to bring its North American total to $225.7 million, and its worldwide gross to $480 million.
While Mockingjay is still doing less business than The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($296.3 million in North America following Thanksgiving 2013), its $82.7 million haul has made it the third highest-grossing film in the history of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The only movies that have done better are the aforementioned Catching Fire ($110 million) and Frozen ($93 million).
The impressive gross for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 was enough to offset the challenge from two new arrivals this weekend.
While Penguins of Madagascar managed to come in at No. 2 with $36 million over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, it's one of the worst openings in the history of the holiday for an animated film. It only managed to do better than DreamWorks' 2012 bomb Rise of the Guardians ($32.3 million). Of course, it's hard for any animated film to get traction right now with Big Hero 6 still doing big numbers in the family market. Hell, ask The Book of Life, which has fallen off the Top 10 charts completely. Big Hero 6 earned $26 million to come in at No. 3 and bring its overall domestic gross to $167.2 million over four weekends. It's not hard to imagine that Dreamworks would have had a better time this weekend if Disney weren't around, but the success of Frozen -- and now Big Hero 6 -- has essentially illustrated that Disney has Novembers on lock.
Still, Penguins of Madagascar did better than the weekend's other new arrival: Horrible Bosses 2 debuted at No. 4 with just $23 million, which is well below projections for the R-rated comedy sequel. It only narrowly outgrossed Interstellar, which earned $22 million in its fourth weekend.
But what else rounded out the Top 10? Check out the listings below:
1. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 ($82.7 million)
2. Penguins of Madagascar ($36 million)
3. Big Hero 6 ($26 million)
4. Horrible Bosses 2 ($23 million)
5. Interstellar ($22 million)
6. Dumb and Dumber To ($11.6 million)
7. The Theory of Everything ($6.4 million)
8. Gone Girl ($3.3 million)
9. Birdman ($2.4 million)
10. St. Vincent ($2.3 million)
Credit: Lionsgate