resinrats

1 N The Hunger Games: Catching Fire LGF $161,125,000 - 4,163 - $38,704 $161,125,000 $130 1
2 1 Thor: The Dark World BV $14,117,000 -61.4% 3,713 -128 $3,802 $167,837,000 $170 3
3 2 The Best Man Holiday Uni. $12,522,000 -58.4% 2,041 +17 $6,135 $50,391,000 $17 2
4 N Delivery Man BV $8,215,000 - 3,036 - $2,706 $8,215,000 $26 1
5 4 Free Birds Rela. $5,300,000 -34.6% 3,071 -439 $1,726 $48,594,000 $55 4
6 3 Last Vegas CBS $4,400,000 -47.9% 2,926 -311 $1,504 $53,926,000 $28 4
7 5 Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa Par. $3,450,000 -53.5% 2,625 -565 $1,314 $95,451,000 $15 5
8 6 Gravity WB $3,305,000 -45.9% 1,845 -715 $1,791 $245,503,000 $100 8
9 8 12 Years a Slave FoxS $2,800,000 -39.2% 1,474 +63 $1,900 $29,393,000 - 6
10 12 Dallas Buyers Club Focus $2,770,000 +58.2% 666 +482 $4,159 $6,450,000 - 4


http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/

auto

Wonder if Hunger Games 2 will have the legs to reach 400M.

Dr. DVD

^ It will have to use any legs it has over the next week or two. There's way more competition out there at this time of year than in March.

I wouldn't be surprised if they try to convert the last two to 3D so they can get bigger openings.

resinrats

I think the biggest threat to Hunger Games is Hobbit but that isn't until Dec 13.

hanshotfirst1138

That should be plenty of time for it to make money.

RichC2

It has Thanksgiving Weekend (4 days) and the weekend after that all mostly to itself (Frozen should do well too) and should have close to $280m by this time next week.

Ash Ketchum

So does this mean that THOR 2 is officially a flop?

RichC2

It crossed half-a-billion over the weekend, so yup!

Gravity opened in China last week, its six day tally is $35.5 million.

Giles

which movie?

RichC2

Thor 2. Or did it break half a billion last week? Not sure actually.

EddieMoney

Very disappointed in the performance of "Free Birds."

resinrats

For all the talk of how China is so important for box office, the money they take in isn't that impressive. Add to the fact the govt keeps most of the take, Hollywood should just not even bother

bluetoast

That's not going to happen. The article doesn't even mention the new huge studio being built in China that a lot of Hollywood people want a piece of. And is there info on the govt taking most of the money, I don't see anything about that?

http://variety.com/2013/biz/news/cor...na-1200728607/

Why So Blu?

And Lionsgate stock went down 10% due to Catching Fire "bombing."

To the extent that anything I write “matters”, this is why. Regular readers know that I write a lot about the expectations game for predicting box office, specifically in terms of opening weekend predictions and the damage that can be done when people with little inside knowledge or understanding of the business makes predictions that get treated as gospel by the media. If you want to know why, look no further than this afternoon”s news that the stock price of Lionsgate studios has dropped 10% today. This despite The Hunger Games: Catching Fire debuting with $158 million, or the fourth-biggest weekend of all-time. Scratch that, if you believe the media coverage, Lionsgate’s stock took a hit today BECAUSE of the “mere” $158 million opening weekend.

You see, expectations on Wall Street (and much of Hollywood) were that Hunger Games: Catching Fire would open to $175 million, higher than the $174m debut of Iron Man 3, or even as high as $185m. Never mind that the first scored the fifth-biggest debut of all-time, the second-biggest 2D debut of all-time (just behind The Dark Knight Rises‘s $160m debut) and the biggest November opening ever. Oh no, because somebody somewhere presumed that Catching Fire would substantially build on last year’s near-record debut, we have another near-record debut, slightly higher than the first Hunger Games no less, that is now reported as a reason why Lionsgate stock dipped and/or a number that requires “positive spin“. Here’s some positive spin: A $130 million film just grossed $158 million in its first three days of domestic play and has amassed $307 million worldwide in about a week.

Now, to be absolutely clear, it is entirely possible that the 10% dip today was not directly or entirely caused by Catching Fire‘s debut but by various other factors that I’m frankly not equipped to discuss. But the media reaction implies if-not outright states a clear link between the film’s sad, pathetic and shameful $158 million opening and the stock dip. There are two options. A) Wall Street devalued a company stock due to a near-record debut industry debut of their industry product because it wasn’t high enough for their unreasonable expectations, such as what happened with Dreamworks and Madagascar in 2005. B) The media is spinning the story as such so they can write sexy headlines like “Lions Gate stock down on ‘Catching Fire’ US miss”. Both possibilities need to be addressed, and they can be addressed by the same argument that I’ve been making for ages.

There is no pure science about how sequels open in comparison to the originals. Sometimes you get an explosion of goodwill from the first film which had a decent debut, which causes the sequel to go nuts on opening weekend (The Bourne Supremacy). Sometimes you get sequels that open a little bit bit bigger than the last, but without massive growth (Thor: The Dark World). And sometimes you get sequels that open a little less than the originals (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). It’s not an exact science, but there is an unfortunate expectation in publicly traded companies that “up” is the only positive result even when “same” would represent repeating terrific business.

There was no reason to “expect” The Hunger Games: Catching Fire to gross substantially more than the $152 million debut of The Hunger Games, since The Hunger Games already debuted at near-record levels. It was a rare franchise that arguably hit its ceiling the first time out, similar to the Harry Potter franchise, as opposed to the Twilight Saga which peaked in film number two. There is no hard-and-fast pattern for how a sequel will debut in comparison to the first film.

There are variables and factors to be considered, like if there are any added value elements (like Heath Ledger as The Joker), or how well-liked the last film was (Addams Family Values wasn’t helped by the sub-par Addams Family), how high the previous film opened to (the Saw franchise was never going to get over the $35m ceiling) or whether the first film was merely a case of mass curiosity (The Da Vinci Code, The Smurfs, etc.). As such, it was either delusional or disingenuous to “expect” Catching Fire to go from a $152 million debut to a $175-$185m debut, especially without the 3D ticket price bump that Iron Man 3 had.

All of this is basically a round-about way of saying that a $158 million debut for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is a terrific debut weekend for any film, including Catching Fire. The idea that the film’s performance may have hurt Lionsgate’s stock, or that the media thinks it did, is disturbing to say the least. It shows the real danger of outlandish box office predictions sans context or authority. I’m sure Lionsgate will be fine tomorrow or the next day soon after.

But there is a reason why I constantly rail against the hyperventilating box office predictions that get passed around as quasi-factual guestimates. And there is a reason why studios work so hard to get their deflated “expectations” out in the media even while rival studios and outside pundits swear that records will fall each time out. That reason is what happened today, when Lionsgate had to go on the defensive for its best-ever Fri-Sun debut weekend, the fifth-biggest for any film no-less.

Either Lionsgate suffered financially because “among the very best” wasn’t good enough, or the media is attempting to tie the two events together as a way to sell the debut weekend as a disappointment. Neither outcome is acceptable.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmen...tes-stock-dip/

RichC2

Yeah the 8% decline made me realize how stupid Wall Street really is, and I should be making a ton of money right now.

It's because China is generally one of the highest grossing non-US territory. Iron Man 3 and Pacific Rim pulled $121m and $111m respectively. Fast and Fucious 6, The Croods, Man of Steel, Skyfall, Star Trek Into Darkness, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Jurassic Park 3d, etc; were all between $55 and $65m.

The government issues will be worked out if China wants to keep getting in on Hollywood territory, and that is what it all comes down to.

Ash Ketchum

There are tons of articles you can read, but here's one of them:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...47010231952762

And here's a quote from it that should help a little:

bluetoast

Ah thanks. That's interesting and I'll read more about it, but it's nowhere near "most of the take" like the other poster said.

resinrats

75% is most of the take.

bluetoast

Yikes, I misread it. Yeah that sucks.

GatorDeb

Must have made a mistake in that first post, it seems to indicate the movie made $161 mill in one week and over its budget and is pretty much even with Thor even though the other one in its third week

dan30oly

Thor was very disappointing and not nearly as good. I'm not surprised.