OPENINGS:  THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) came up from initial Friday estimates to $70.5M, the 7th highest single day box office in US history (behind the final Harry Potter, The Avengers, The Dark Knight, and 3 Twilights) and $3.2M ahead of the opening day for The Hunger Games.  If Catching Fire held as […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #47 of 2013 looks like $211 million for the top 12 films — not quite up to the standard of the weekend before Thanksgiving but not an embarrassment.   Opening at 4,163 theaters Friday, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire from Lionsgate/Summit grossed $68.9 million Friday and is on track for a $150.4 million […]

  Early numbers at Deadline have the opening day (including Thursday night) of THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) at $67.5M, $200K above the launch of the original Hunger Games.  That makes it slightly puzzling that the weekend estimates, at Deadline and elsewhere, peg the weekend at around $145M, $7M or so less than Hunger […]

  With shows that began at 8PM last night, THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) earned $25.3M, and as is often the case with initial numbers, they can be read in several ways.  On the one hand, the result is considerably higher than the $19.7M Thursday night gross for the first Hunger Games–but that was […]

  THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE, the 600-pound gorilla of the holiday movie box office season (The Hobbit 2 is by comparison a smaller simian, at least in the US) opens tonight, and the question is just how big it will be.  The first Hunger Games opened in March 2012 and had the 6th biggest […]

The 47th weekend of the year is looking like $238 million for the top 12 films, just about where the weekend before Thanksgiving should be. Opening at over 4,100 theaters Friday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire from Lionsgate/Summit should average a superior $40,800 per […]

  OPENINGS:  THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY (Universal) had a strong Saturday bump for a movie aimed at the African-American audience, up 16% from Friday (in comparison, Think Like A Man increased 9% and Tyler Perry’s last 2 movies dropped 16% and 8%). That suggests very positive word of mouth, which may give Best Man unexpected […]

Updated worldwide box office chart for 2013 North American films.  Also, click here for a summary of worldwide performance by studio.