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Hunger Games 'Mockingjay' On Track For Biggest Box Office Opening Weekend Of 2014

This article is more than 9 years old.

Thanksgiving is next week but thousands of Hunger Games fans will be giving thanks early this weekend by storming theaters to see the third film in the Lionsgate franchise: Mockingjay Part 1.

Exhibitor Relations expects the film will have the biggest opening of the year with $170 million or more at the U.S. box office this weekend. To date, Transformers: Age of Extinction had the biggest opening with $100 million. After this weekend, that's likely to be a distant second place. Last year's Catching Fire opened to $158 million and went on to earn $865 million. With a $170 million opening and no other really big films set to hit theaters until December 12th when the big bible epic Exodus:Gods and Men opens, Mockingjay could be on its way to $1 billion at the box office.

That means the franchise will easily double its $1.5 billion box office take (so far) with the two-part Mockingjay. The second film is scheduled to hit theaters November 2oth, 2015.

If the two parts of Mockingjay earn $2 billion at the box office, it will be an amazing return on investment for Lionsgate which produces the franchise. The studio reportedly spent $250 million to produce the two films back to back. That might sound like a lot but consider it would have probably cost upward of $300 million to produce the films separately.

At $2 billion, the studio would collect about half of that money so $1 billion. Assume another $100 million spent on marketing expenses and the cost of production goes up to $350 million. That still leaves a $650 million profit and that's before home video and merchandise money.

Of course the above math comes with a lot of "ifs." The movie is  getting mostly positive reviews (it scores an 81 out of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes). But reviewers are saying it's light on action and heavy on politics. Those accustomed to the first two movies, which each featured a brutal contest where children tried to kill other children in a futuristic arena,might be disappointed to find less violence and more discussions about the value of Katniss as a symbol in the third movie.

If the film doesn't generate strong word of mouth after opening weekend, casual fans could decide to wait to check it out on home video and save their theater money for the next Mockingjay film which promises some climactic battles between the rebels and the Capital for control of Panem.

And although $1 billion has become the new standard for a successful movie, it's actually still a pretty rare feat. Look at Box Office Mojo's list of the top grossing movies of all time at the global box office. Only 19 films have earned over $1 billion.

No one will consider the last two movies failures if they each earn more in the high $800 million, low $900 million range. Although it's hard to remember, The Hunger Games was always a gamble. When producer Nina Jacobson secured the rights to the book, no studios were competing against her in the bidding. She was eventually able to convince Lionsgate to take a chance but only after other studios had passed. The stars were paid under $1 million each for their work on the first film which was made for a relatively tight $78 million.

Now everyone is getting rich for the films and they will continue to for at least the next few years. We estimate Jennifer Lawrence earned $34 million between June 2013 and June 2014. Most of that was Hunger Games money.

 

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