Many were left wondering how director Francis Lawrence would handle the sudden death of an actor who had played a significant role in the franchise as gamemaker turned resistance leader Plutarch Heavensbee. “The Night Before”, a bawdy comedy with Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, fared best, earning $10.1 million from 2,960 theaters.
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According to Entertainment Weekly, total box office gross is down 11 percent from the same week previous year when the first “Mockingjay” movie opened.
The final instalment of the Hunger Games; Mockingjay Part 2 is finally here.
Disney and Pixar’s animated film “The Good Dinosaur” and the seventh film in the “Rocky” series, “Creed”, both open over Thanksgiving weekend.
Considering Part 1 was a dreary slow burner, Part 2 is a lot more exciting, although does start out quite slowly itself. With all the focus on theHunger Games release, these two movies fell a little under the radar and will not have a significant impact on the box office in the upcoming weeks. The drama’s $6.6 million debut and $2,773 per-screen average mark the lowest opening in Roberts’ career. The film cost $23 million to make, and drew an opening weekend crowd that was evenly split between men and women. If you’ve been following along this far, you won’t be disappointed; if you’re a fan of the book, you won’t be disappointed; and if you haven’t seen any of these movies yet…what are you waiting for?!
But even though there are is no confirmation yet of the Hunger Games film franchise expanding its storyline, some people have already offered their ideas for more films in Suzanne Collins’ saga. The Secret In Their Eyes wasn’t able to muscle through, with the remake of an acclaimed Argentinian thriller of the same name earning a disappointing $6.6 million for a fifth place finish. The Night Before and Secret landed in spots four and five, respectively, with holdoversSpectre (weekend gross $14.6 million, total gross $153.7 million) and The Peanuts Movie (weekend gross $12.8 million, total gross $98.9 million) coming in at two and three.
“For me, “Hunger Games” is Katniss and we’ve told her story”, said producer Nina Jacobson on io9.
At art houses, Brooklyn (Fox Searchlight) continued to perform well and new release Carol (The Weinstein Company), starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, posted strong results in extremely limited release.
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“When a franchise is this popular and this successful in this short a time, expectations run very high”, said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst for Rentrak.
