Box Office

THE HUNGER GAMES Rakes In $155 Million; Gary Ross Pic Has Third Best All-Time Opening

By Michelle McCue | March 25, 2012

The 74th Annual Hunger Games arrived to the tune of $155 million at this weekend’s box office breaking all kinds of records. THE HUNGER GAMES had the third best opening of all time right behind HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 ($169,189,427 M) and THE DARK KNIGHT ($158,411,483). The film is currently sitting at an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes (Read Jim Batts’ review HERE).

Directed by Gary Ross (SEABISCUIT), THE HUNGER GAMES had the highest opening for a March 3-day weekend as well as the highest non-sequel opening. The B.O. numbers place it over SPIDER-MAN 3 ($151.1 million) and the TWILIGHT films – THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON ($142.8 M) and THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 1 ($138.1 M). Lionsgate launched THE HUNGER GAMES in 4,137 theaters in North America and 268 IMAX screens.

Based on Suzanne Collins’ best-selling novel, the actioner stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz with Stanley Tucci and Donald Sutherland. In August 2011 Lionsgate announced it will release CATCHING FIRE, the film adaptation of the second book in Suzanne Collins’ runaway bestselling HUNGER GAMES trilogy, on November 22, 2013.

Welcome to the intense reality of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who must try to survive – by sheer wits and will alone – a future world that is at once high-tech and apocalyptic, glitzy and primal, unsettlingly dangerous and a telltale mirror to our own. Unfolding entirely through Katniss’ intimately personal POV, THE HUNGER GAMES reveals how this miner’s daughter from a dark future transforms from a mere pawn in a lethal televised contest to a soulful, sacrificing heroine who comes to realize that she has even more to protect and fight for than her own family.

For those of you in the St. Louis area today, the B&B Wildwood 10 is offering students a free small popcorn when they show their student id.