‘The Hunger Games’ Set for Monster $120 Million+ Opening Weekend; Could Beat ‘Breaking Dawn’
When The Hunger Games came on tracking less than two weeks ago, we brought you word that it was on pace for a healthy $70 million opening weekend. Well scrap that, the new numbers for the Lionsgate movie are out and they are almost unprecedented for a non-sequel.
Definite interest in the adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ wildly popular young adult novel popped to 60 percent; awareness is a nearly universal 83 percent and unaided awareness jumped from 14 percent to 21 percent in just the last week. To put things in perspective, this is even better than The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn–Part 1, which debuted in November 2011 to the tune of $138 million and this is basically unheard of for a film that isn’t a sequel.
“Numbers don’t get much higher than this,” said one rival studio executive to THR. “Hunger Games is tracking like a sequel, even though it isn’t a sequel. It’s three times higher than the first Twilight.”
Accordingly, estimates have been revised up to the $100 to $120 million range and there definitely is a possibility that the Gary Ross movie will challenge Breaking Dawn – Part 1 for the fifth best open of all-time. That is because The Hunger Games has a decisive advantage over the Twilight franchise: Interest from males of all ages. Tracking for young males under 25 is at a solid 28 percent (10% for Breaking Dawn) while males over 25 is 20 percent.
Finally, while it’s hard to believe this could be even bigger, also keep in mind that The Hunger Games is still ten days away from its release on March 23. Lionsgate marketing push is still going strong as shown by the latest clip below (courtesy of MTV):
Will you see “The Hunger Games” on opening weekend? Why are you excited about the movie? Let us know below!
28 Comments
I just hope the film turns out to be actually really good. I’m not sure if I want to see it but at least it looks far more interesting than those crappy “Twilight” films.
Yea with all the hype, this better be at least pretty good.
Wow. Yeah, this is going to be huge. My girlfriend is going nuts about it, so I will be there opening night. Hope it’s good.
With hordes of screaming teens ahah
At the risk of sounding like an out of touch old rube, what are these Hunger Games I’ve been hearing so much about lately and how do you play?
Still time to get on the bandwagon Dave!
…Is that Lawrence in leather?
Who else would it be?!
Well, that is one more reason to see this then
The obsession with box-office numbers will probably end after The Hunger Games, at least for a few weeks. Until The Avengers.
Hey Castor, did you know some cast members of Hunger Games were at Mall of America on Friday? Apparently some people camped out for 12 hours, wow!! It’s Twilight all over again, so yeah I think this one’ll be massive. Glad I didn’t go to the mall that day as sometimes I made a stop after work Friday night. It must have been nuts!
Yea there were thousands of people at the Mall of America on Friday for the meet & greet. That’s pretty insane for a movie that has yet to come out ahah. I know 1,200 people camped at the mall overnight…
Spoken like someone who was there along with all of them
I was there and passed out when I touched Jennifer Lawrence arm*! KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Ahah, I could just picture it, Castor
That’s odd. I seem to remember the startribune reporting some weirdo in blue tights being “escorted out” by security.
I am actually quite looking forward to it now. I was undecided… but I am happy to jump on the band wagon now. I have a Press screening on Monday so I am hoping I will not be let down
Nice, looking forward to your take
Not sure why but I am really excited about this film. Maybe it’s all the hype around it but I can’t help but be intrigued. I saw the trailer and it seems to be a strong mix of substantive material with a sci-fi twist, LOST meets Lord of the Flies. I think Jennifer Lawrence is an outstanding yong talent, sheis also very distinctive looking which helps.
Yea I hope it’s good. The world could use that lol
For this to succeed and be good would be a huge deal. Twilight‘s a morass of terrible writing and really bizarre psychological themes, married to a really black-and-white, unreasonably straightforward worldview. The Hunger Games, on the other hand, is complex and filled with robust characters, and all of it’s delivered to us with really strong writing. The last lines of Mockingjay are choke-up worthy. Seriously.
So hearing the newest projections is encouraging. I want this picture to score at the box office and present itself as a high-quality picture.
I just ordered the book so we will see whether you are right or whether you are a pansy ah!
But yea, let’s hope this is good!
I’m not crying, you are!
The book is worth the hype, I hope they’ve done it justice and can’t wait to see the film! Enjoy the book Castor!
This is interesting. There doesn’t seem to be too much buzz about it here in the Uk but I’m looking forward to seeing it.
A little while back I predicted this was going to do $150 million worldwide on opening weekend. However, since then, the buzz for this just keeps growing with no stop in sight. It seems like a monster. I didn’t think it could grow anymore beyond what it was when I made predictions a while back, but this things knows no bounds it seems. And Lionsgate’s marketing has just been great for this, just building the buzz more and more.
Obviously, predictions have to be adjusted after the increased buzz and ramped up marketing campaign. I just hope the buzz doesn’t get so big that the movie couldn’t possibly live up to critical expectations.
I think we could see buzz and appeal rise even higher if Lionsgate does things right in this final week and a half. They already have the female audience hooked, now they need to start really tapping into the males. Run a couple spots focusing on the action and violence and I bet those male numbers would jump up.
This is going to be a beast, and it’s only going to get bigger as the franchise goes on probably. This movie is going to have long legs too, I imagine. We could be looking at a possibility for this to hit the $1 Billion mark worldwide at the end of its run.
P.S. I’m calling it right now. Hunger Games does better than The Avengers, and is topped by only The Dark Knight Rises.
I get it but at the same time I don’t. My friend keeps telling me to read the books but I have not gotten there yet.
I keep thinking that I’ll see this but there’s no way I’m going to fight the first weekend crowds. But I just looked at Fandango to see the other choices of what is opening: The Raid and The Deep Blue Sea. Poor Rachel Weisz. It feels like they’ve been pushing her movie back forever, and when it finally does come to theaters it is against The Hunger Games?
So anyway, it’s possible that I’ll end up contributing to those opening weekend numbers after all.
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