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Weekend Box-Office: The Hunger Games Certainly Not Starving After Record-Breaking Win

Seth Paul

And they say no one reads anymore…well, people were certainly lining up to catch the big screen debut of The Hunger Games, based on the best-selling young adult novels. Even concerns about violent content weren’t enough to dissuade audiences and critics alike from giving it the best opening ever for a film that wasn’t a sequel or prequel to another film, with $152.5 million in domestic revenue (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 still holds the all-time opening weekend with $169.1 million). It blew away any and all competition, with second place going to 21 Jump Street. While profitable, 21 Jump Street can’t match the projected success of The Hunger Games, dropping to $20.5 million, while Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax held onto third with only $13.2 million (though at $177.4 million in domestic revenue, it’s a rousing success…even if its four-week totals are only slightly better than The Hunger Games’ one week).

John Carter could’ve used a weekend like that, but it’ll have to rely on foreign gross to make it work…the $250 million budgeted blockbuster’s drop to $5.1 million this weekend would normally puts its three-week domestic total of $62.4 million into bomb territory, but outside the U.S. it has performed admirably, if not spectacularly, with $172.1 million. However, the word bomb CAN apply to sixth-place finisher A Thousand Words. Eddie Murphy’s long-delayed comedy still ranks among the worst-reviewed movies of all-time, and it carries over into its earnings…slightly under $2 million this weekend and $14 million in domestic (and as it turns out, overall) totals, the $40 million budget seems a long way away. Right in between, both in terms of standings and success, Act of Valor, earned over $2 million this weekend and a solid $65.9 million domestically.

Project X, Safe House, and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island declined along expected lines ($1.9 million, slightly above $1.4 million, and slightly below $1.4 million respectively), but Safe House and Journey 2 fell to ninth and tenth behind the debut of October Baby. Whether or not the film’s release was timed to coincide with recent political hot buttons issues, the faith-based film about a young woman’s discovery that she survived an abortion didn’t spark too much in terms of ticket sales…if its $1 million budget is to be believed, it turned a profit over the weekend, but not by much with $1.7 million.

Weekend Box-Office (March 23rd – March 25th)

  1. The Hunger Games…$152.5 million
  2. 21 Jump Street…$20.5 million
  3. Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax…$13.2 million
  4. John Carter…$5.1 million
  5. Act of Valor…$2 million
  6. A Thousand Words…$2 million
  7. Project X…$1.9 million
  8. October Baby…$1.7 million
  9. Safe House…$1.4 million
  10. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island …$1.4 million

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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