Are Hunger Games Fans That Patient? Mockingjay Part 1 Domestic Box Office Falls Short of Series Records

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 did very well at the box office this weekend but not as well as Lionsgate probably hoped domestically.

Leading up to its release, I heard a lot of people saying they were going to wait to see Mockingjay Part 1 (The Mary Sue’s review here.) until just before Mockingjay Part 2 was released. Bless them. I haven’t gotten a chance to see it yet but I know there’s no way I’d last another year. But did this affect the film’s opening weekend take? The Hollywood Reporter’s box office report explains:

Mockingjay grossed $123 million from 4,151 locations, down 22 percent from the $158.1 million debut of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire a year ago and 19 percent from the $152.5 million launch of The Hunger Games in March 2012 (both those films shattered numerous records).

But things were different worldwide:

The reverse is true overseas, where Mockingjay outperformed the first two films, grossing $152 million, or four percent ahead of Catching Fire ($146 million). That puts Mockingjay’s worldwide total at $275 million, one of the best showings of the year, even if it didn’t match Catching Fire’s tally ($294.1 million).

Are Lionsgate kicking themselves for splitting the last book in Suzanne Collins’ series into two? Assuredly not. They were filmed at the same time, meaning they saved some money, and will be getting double the profits. THR also notes this is the first of the series not to play on IMAX screens.

Mockingjay Part 1 also takes this year’s record of best opening weekend over Transformers: Age of Extinction. Thank god.

Previously in The Hunger Games

• #MyHungerGames: My Story Of Poverty, And Why The Hashtag Is So Important
• The Hunger Games’ Donald Sutherland Likens Jennifer Lawrence to Joan of Arc. Oh, and Also Jesus.
• The Gobble Games: Where Turkeys Duke It Out for the Presidential Pardon

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Jill Pantozzi

Jill Pantozzi is a pop-culture journalist and host who writes about all things nerdy and beyond! She’s Editor in Chief of the geek girl culture site The Mary Sue (Abrams Media Network), and hosts her own blog “Has Boobs, Reads Comics” (TheNerdyBird.com). She co-hosts the Crazy Sexy Geeks podcast along with superhero historian Alan Kistler, contributed to a book of essays titled “Chicks Read Comics,” (Mad Norwegian Press) and had her first comic book story in the IDW anthology, “Womanthology.” In 2012, she was featured on National Geographic’s "Comic Store Heroes," a documentary on the lives of comic book fans and the following year she was one of many Batman fans profiled in the documentary, "Legends of the Knight."

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