December 2, 2013 by Vinnie Leduc
For the second weekend in a row, the odds were ever in the favor of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and despite a record-setting opening by Frozen, the sci-fi literary adaptation sequel managed to defend its throne at the domestic box office by setting its own record. Catching Fire, an honorable mention for one of our most anticipated movies of the year, roasted the five-day Thanksgiving weekend record by nearly $30 million with a gross of $109.9 million; it had previously been held for 12 years by the first Harry Potter movie.
Catching Fire is tracking ahead of predecessor The Hunger Games by nearly $50 million at this point and is already a just few million shy of the $300 million mark. The $74.2 million that Catching Fire made over the traditional three-day weekend was the fourth-highest ever for a second weekend, only trailing The Avengers, Avatar, and The Dark Knight. This impressive take comes on the heels of Catching Fire‘s stellar debut last week, when it enjoyed the sixth-highest opening of all time and the biggest November opening ever.
In its wide release, Frozen put up a big fight. Disney’s 3D computer-animated family flick opened to $93.6 million over the extended holiday weekend, breaking Toy Story 2‘s record for the highest Thanksgiving debut ever by almost $15 million. Thor: The Dark World slipped to third in its fourth weekend and should be close to crossing the $200 million mark after next weekend. The Best Man Holiday continued its surprising run at fourth place, and rounding out the top five was action-thriller Homefront. Its weak opening of under $10 million is only good news if you consider that it didn’t flop as badly as musical Black Nativity and awards contender Philomena (which debuted at eighth and ninth places, respectively) and didn’t bomb as horribly as Spike Lee’s action remake Oldboy, which at 18th place only made $1.3 million against a budget of $30 million.
With only drama-thriller Out of the Furnace opening wide this upcoming weekend, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is set to join Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Gravity, which is about to hit the $250 million milestone, as the only movies to three-peat at the domestic box office this year.
Here are the numbers for the top five over the five-day holiday weekend via BOM:
- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire — Weekend Gross: $109.9 million — Total Gross: $296.3 million (#1 last week)
- Frozen — Weekend Gross: $93.6 million — Total Gross: $93.6 million (new)
- Thor: The Dark World — Weekend Gross: $15.5 million — Total Gross: $186.7 million (#2 last week)
- The Best Man Holiday — Weekend Gross: $10.8 million — Total Gross: $63.1 million (#3 last week)
- Homefront — Weekend Gross: $9.7 million — Total Gross: $9.7 million (new)
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