‘Catching Fire’ does just that

As predicted, records were shattered this past weekend, thanks to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’s fantastic bow. The sequel to 2012’s Hunger Games (and we thought that film was popular) earned $161.1 million domestically and $307.7 worldwide. Here’s how it stacks up against previous cinematic and pop culture phenoms:

• Catching Fire had the highest-grossing November opening of all time. The old record-holder, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, debuted to a paltry (it’s all relative) $148.2 million.


• Catching Fire had the fourth highest-grossing opening ever. Its cume ranks just behind The Avengers’ $207.4 million, Iron Man 3’s $174.1 million, and the last Harry Potter movie’s $169.2 million.


• Katniss & Co. just barely dethroned The Dark Knight Rises, which got bumped down a peg to the No. 5 slot on the list of most successful domestic opening weekends. Knight opened to $160.9 million back in 2012.

Catching Fire is also Lionsgate’s most successful release to date. It had the 12th most lucrative international opening ever.

Some other movies made some money this weekend, too, although their stories are less uplifting. Thor: The Dark World earned $14.1 million, the most money of any film that was not Catching Fire. As its total suggests, The Dark World suffered a freefall of a drop in sales, down 61% from last week. The Best Man Holiday, last weekend’s surprise success story, also staggered, falling 58% to gross $12.5 million. While reverberations from the revolution brewing in The Hunger Games' Panem have clearly hurt the cinema’s other offerings, neither The Dark World nor Holiday has been fatally wounded. The Thor sequel will likely finish out with a little over $200 million, while The Best Man Holiday will probably top out at $75 million.

Similar reassurances cannot be made on behalf of Vince Vaughn’s latest vehicle, Delivery Man. The comedian begat a bomb with his tale of a boy-man sperm donor whose contributions result in 500+ children. Delivery Man grossed $8.2 million, less than half of each of Vaughn’s last two films, The Internship and The Dilemma. At least Vaughn can take comfort in knowing other name stars, at least those who were not christened Jennifer Lawrence, have also seen their stock fall this season. Both Runner Runner, starring Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake, and The Counselor, whose credits read like the guest list for Vanity Fair’s Oscar party (Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Michael Fassbender, and Brad Pitt) opened to less than $10 million. Times, they are a changin’.

One thing, however, remains constant: the undeniable appeal of Judi Dench. The grand dame’s Philomena opened in four locations and earned a respectable (how could it could have been anything other than?) $133,716, or $33,429 per theatre.

Neither has Tom Hanks lost his enduring appeal. The actor’s Oscar contender Captain Phillips sailed past the $100 million domestic mark this weekend, its seventh, with no sign of slowing pace.

‘Games’ to make child’s play of weekend b.o.

It’s a foregone conclusion the second installment in the Hunger Games franchise, opening today in 4,163 theatres, will prove victorious at the box office this weekend  – and the next weekend, and the one after that, and so on and so forth, until Catching Fire has not merely broken but incinerated most sales records set before it.

If our expectations sound a tad hyperbolic, consider the context. The first Hunger Games film opened to an awe-some $152 million. It continued to hold strong through the duration of its theatrical run, resisting any significant downturn in sales thanks to strong word-of-mouth and favorable reviews. By the time it finally closed, The Hunger Games had amassed $408 million. That makes it the 14th highest-grossing movie of all time. Surprisingly, it out-earned any of the Harry Potter or Twilight films, which had previously set the bar for frenzied-fan fare.

Then there’s that small, shiny pated statue perched somewhere in Jennifer Lawrence’s house. The actress who plays Katniss Everdeen has seen her star rise and rise since 2012’s Games. She won an Oscar for her turn as a stubborn yet compassionate (we spy a theme) dancer in David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook last year, and stood out within an ensemble cast of pretty mutants in Marble’s lucrative tentpole X Men: First Class. Add to the mix all those viral videos of her acting lovely, like the one in which she comforted a crying fan, and Jennifer Lawrence is capable of calling upon quite a large group of faithful for support.

However, there are those pundits who believe it would be difficult for any film, even this one, to surpass a $152 million weekend opening. There’s little doubt Catching Fire will match its predecessor – beyond that, it may eke out another $8 million or so for a staggering $160 haul. Odds are favorable.

Less so for the latest Vince Vaughn comedy, Delivery Man. Once a bankable draw, Vaughn has taken his lumps of late. Neither The Internship nor The Dilemma (no, can’t remember them either) was very successful, with the one opening to $17.3 million and the other $17.8 million. Man is tracking for an even poorer debut.

Specialty release Philomena also opens in four locations today. The film has seen a small boost in publicity in recent weeks, thanks to Harvey Weinstein’s successful campaign to change the movie’s R rating to PG-13. Weinstein’s hoping the softened label will reap dividends when Philomena opens wide and becomes accessible to family and church-going audiences, but for now, its largely positive reviews should appeal to the weekend’s arthouse viewers.

In all, between Catching Fire and the still popular Thor: The Dark World and The Best Man Holiday, this coming weekend could be one of the cinema’s best ever.

'The Purge' doubles the opening of 'The Internship'

Thanks to savvy marketing that pulled in both horror fans and those who perfer lighter thrillers, The Purge landed on top with $36 million this weekend. Horror fans liked the idea of seeing a family fend off a violent attack in their home, while others were drawn in by the fact that a futuristic government has made this kind of behavior legal--at least for 12 hours a year. Back in 2002, Panic Room, another home invasion movie that also had more of a thriller than horror vibe, opened to $30 million. The picture performed well among Hispanic audiences, which accounted for a third of ticket sales, as well as women, who bought 56% of the tickets.

In contrast, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn couldn't excite audiences about The Internship. The comedy opened in fourth place with $18.1 million--and it cost far more than the reported $3 million for The Purge. That $18 million total is half the opening of Wedding Crashers, and it's also not a good showing for Shawn Levy, whose directing credits include the $100+ million comedy Date Night. Many critics felt uneasy with the heavy Google tie-in, which came across more like an advertisement than a lampoon, and audiences may feel the same way. In coming weeks, word-of-mouth will make this one sink quickly or coast through a bit longer.

With major blockbusters releasing since the beginning of May, plenty of pictures put in strong holdover weekends, dropping just a third from the previous weekend. Fast & Furious 6 kept its decline to 43%, which still gave the car chase movie $19.7 million. Down 33% in its second weekend, Now You See Me closely tailed Fast & Furious, posting returns of $19.5 million. Further down the list, Epic, Star Trek Into Darkness, Iron Man 3 and The Great Gatsby all dropped in the mid-30% range. There were a couple of losers, though: After Earth plummeted 59% in its second weekend, while The Hangover Part III lost 55% of its audience.

Joss Whedon's foray into Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, averaged $36,000 per screen in five locations, for a total of $183,000. Next week, the low-budget adaptation, set in present day, will expand into a few hundred theatres. The documentary Dirty Wars, which reveals how the "Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) has been fighting a secret
war against terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan," had a strong debut, averaging $16,500 per screen in four theatres.

On Wednesday, the apocalyptic comedy This Is the End will hit theatres, followed by superman's return in Man of Steel on Friday.

'Internship' and 'Purge' fight for first in quiet summer weekend

Going into the weekend, The Internship (3,365 theatres) would seem like the frontrunner. The comedy stars Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, whose Wedding Crashers opened to $33 million in 2005. Yet the story about technologically clueless sales guys finding a niche at Google has been receiving terrible reviews, with our Nick Schager calling the movie a "fawning tribute to Google." What starts out as a fun fish-out-of-water premise, a la Legally Blonde, devolves into a boring intern competition that was a lazy, tired way to organize a script, at least from my point-of-view.  Because of the poor reviews (only a third of Rotten Tomatoes critics are coming in "fresh") and the fact that workplace comedies are often a tough sell even without the branded entertainment feel, The Internship won't be coming in first in the class--in fact, it may not exceed $20 million.

The little speculative thriller that could, The Purge (2,536 theatres), may go over $20 million and grab first place this weekend. The premise is this: The government decides to allow a 12-hour period once a year where all crimes will go unpunished. One year, a security consultant who has profited from protecting people during the crime spree finds himself in hot water, in part because his kids don't quite understand the risks (and reasoning) behind the one-night rampage. Although The Purge has only slightly better reviews than The Internship, the picture will benefit by drawing in both horror fans and those who prefer broader suspense. It also has people in really creepy masks, the better to create goosebumps among viewers.

Writer/director Joss Whedon goes from The Avengers to Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing (5 theatres), to which both critics and Whedon fans have alighted. "While cleaving away some of
Shakespeare’s more dragging plot points, Whedon hews to the
original text," critic Chris Barsanti reports. "This refusal to juice
the material with gimmickry pays out handsomely, as Whedon’s
crackerjack cast, drawn mainly from his troupe of TV actors, spins
as fine a web of delicate comedy as will grace movie screens this
year."

Also in the mix this week is Tiger Eyes (13 theatres) an adaptation of Judy Blume's novel about a teen recovering after the sudden death of her father. Directed by Blume's son Lawrence, Tiger Eyes surprisingly has some clumsy screenwriting, according to critic Marsha McCreadie, but a great message about "going home again" and a focus that is "unquestionably a film about family."

On Monday, we'll see if the novelty of The Purge won over the branded comedy of The Internship.