There was good news and bad news at the box office for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1. The good news: The $123 million opening weekend domestic gross was the best to date in 2014. The bad news: It’s the lowest opening weekend gross for any film in the franchise.
The Hunger Games opened with $152 million domestic in March 2012, while The Hunger Games: Catching Fire hit $158 million domestic in opening in November 2013. Overseas, the further adventures of Katniss Everdeen earned a solid $152 million in ticket sales for a worldwide opening-weekend total of $275 million.
Disney’s animated Marvel feature Big Hero 6 held onto second place this weekend — its third in release — with a $20.1 million domestic gross. That puts it at $136 million domestic and $50 million foreign so far; there are many major international markets that have yet to release the film.
Christopher Nolan’s science-fiction film Interstellar held on to third place this weekend with $15 million in domestic ticket sales. That gives it $127 million domestic and $329 million foreign for a total of $450 million in worldwide ticket sales.
This Wednesday sees the release of the most-recent film from DreamWorks Animation: Penguins of Madagascar. The action-comedy spinoff from the Madagascar trilogy and the TV show version will open wide in more than 3,600 cinemas.
