Box Office Weekend: Mockingjay Has Biggest Opening of 2014

While it may be strange to think that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 failed to live up to the financial openings of the previous two films, it did not stop it from being the biggest box office opening weekend of 2014. At an estimated $123 million, it trounced the big four Marvel entries of the year, the reboot of Godzilla, and even Transformers: Age of Extinction, though it has yet to release budget numbers for reasons unknown. With numbers like that, it is well on its way to being the highest grosser of the year, if its numbers hold (even if it is getting slightly less critical praise than the previous entries).

Comparatively, the rest of the competition could barely tread water, despite not doing all that poorly compared to the previous week. Big Hero 6 (estimated $20.1 million) came back against Dumb and Dumber To (which fell to fourth with an estimated $13.8 million), while Interstellar continues to dig in with an estimated $15.1 million. Both Big Hero 6 and Interstellar are going strong to break even domestically (with Interstellar already a smash success in the overseas market), while Dumb and Dumber To and its $57.5 million will likely fall short of Dumb and Dumber in total earnings, but it has far and away surpassed the very ill-received Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, even if its unreported budget suggests the movie cost way more than they would like to admit.

Little else made much in the way of big waves. Gone Girl and its estimated $2.8 million barely registered on its substantial $156.8 million total, while Beyond the Lights scraped past a $7 million budget thanks to an estimated $2.6 million. St. Vincent and its estimated $2.4 million are still mysteries with an unreported budget, Fury and its estimated $1.9 million represent a minor success bolstered by overseas take, and Birdman climbs the charts but drops in revenue with an estimated $1.9 million. Finally, The Theory of Everything, the biopic of Stephen Hawking starring Eddie Redmayne as Hawking, pushed its way onto the top ten in its third week of release, nabbing an estimated $1.5 million in only a handful of theaters.

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Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."

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