The eastern seaboard’s deep freeze couldn’t keep away those Hunger Games fanatics determined to pay $ 17M in tribute to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, which began its pummeling of the box office competition Thursday night — though with less severity than its predecessors.
Though more sluggish out of the gate than earlier Hunger installments, the third rendition of the Y.A. juggernaut remains a social media phenom. The Jennifer Lawrence series measured RelishMix’s biggest Internet crater yet for a film: the adaptation collected more than 602 million clicks on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the largest tally on record for a movie. By comparison, the original Hunger Games collected nearly 375 million clicks across the social-media universe, while Catching Fire did almost 500 million.
The franchise, which has grossed $ 1.5B worldwide with two pics, was already a late-night wonder, though it trailed its predecessors. Catching Fire caught $ 25.2M in its night haul. The Hunger Games collected $ 19.7M.
The Lionsgate flick’s Thursday haul was easily the year’s biggest, the closest being Guardians Of The Galaxy with $ 11.2M. Still, forecasters put its weekend estimates anywhere from $ 140M and above, which would make it the biggest opener of 2014 by at least $ 40M.
More numbers as they roll in…
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