'The Hunger Games' bets on a $100+ million opening weekend

This weekend's box-office total for The Hunger Games will be somewhere in the low nine digits. The first film installment of the young-adult franchise already earned $25 million last night during midnight and 3 am screenings, including some on IMAX screens. Thanks to the flexibility of digital, adding screenings, showing a film on multiple screens or in bigger auditoriums is easier than ever, so exhibitors should be able to meet demand. In fact, the movie will be in 4,137 theatres but on over 10,000 screens, something that just wasn't possible before the rise of digital. With 35mm, showing a movie on more than one screen was done through interlocking prints, a labor-intensive process that also requires that all the theatres have the same showtime.

Critics have been kinder to The Hunger Games than they have to Twilight, giving it an 86% positive rating. Given that critics are often older than the typical fanboy or fangirl, this speaks to the fact that the movie is tracking well across all four quadrants. Even though The Hunger Games was a young-adult novel, many adults picked the books up, so it makes sense that these demographics would also express interest in the film version. As a fan, I can report that my expectations were met--and exceeded. This movie left me more satisfied than 90% of the literary adaptations I see. Not everyone sparked to how the adaptation handled the whole kids-fight-to-the-death in a futuristic world premise. FJI critic Daniel Eagan acknowledged that fans won't be disappointed, but found the adaptation "both digressive and hurried," without providing answers about what the Games really symbolize. I predict fans will go ga-ga and this futuristic adventure will do big business opening weekend and beyond.

No other big movies opted to release this weekend, but the small and spunky The Raid: Redemption (13 theatres) should satisfy those disappointed with The Hunger Games' PG-13 rating. "Full of dynamic physical stunts and imaginative death blows," the super-violent Indonesian actioner "balances moments of intense quiet with fresh crescendos of visceral violence," according to THR's David Rooney.

Joining the parade of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies, 4:44 Last Day on Earth (3 theatres) comes from the well-regarded director Abel Ferrara. Frank Lovece praises the work as "stunningly believable," with natural dialogue and "a fly-on-the-wall verisimilitude that is both bracingly raw and real and occasionally uncomfortable."

On Monday, we'll see just how high The Hunger Games soared, while learning what movies managed to thrive during a weekend so dominated by one offering.