The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has swept the weekend box office and is being lauded as one of the year's biggest blockbusters.
The sequel to The Hunger Games opened with $161.1 million at the domestic weekend box office, per studio estimates on Sunday, November 24, outdoing the 2012 predecessor's $152.5 million debut.
"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" has become the biggest November debut movie and is being counted among studio Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.'s (LGF) most profitable opening.
It has set the best November opening record, beating the $142.8 million notched up by "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" in 2010.
"When the first film was released, there was this idea that it was going to appeal largely to young girls," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak. "But over time, it's skewing back toward male audiences. There's actually a lot of action, there's violence in the movie. It's crossing over to a much broader base."
While "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" failed to topple this year's biggest box office opening by the "Iron Man 3" with $174.1 million, it opened with $307.7 million collections worldwide.
"It's really become a phenomenon," said David Spitz, head of distribution for Lionsgate. "We've established now a better opening than the first, and now we're entering into the Thanksgiving and Christmas period, which is very, very lucrative."
Apart from "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" the other movie to release was Disney's comedy "Delivery Man" starring Vince Vaughn, which garnered $8.2 million in the opening weekend.
Already raking in $307.7 million worldwide in the opening weekend itself, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" seems set to surpass the $691.2 million earned by the prequel.
