Weekend Box Office: Mockingjay Has Modest Opening
by EG
It looks like the Hunger Games franchise might be bowing out at just the right time, as its run as a bona fide cultural phenomenon looks to be at an end. The franchise's final installment opened this past weekend to big ticket sales, but its earnings weren't quite up to the standard set by the most popular Hunger Games films.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 took in about $101 million for the weekend. That's a lot of money, but it's well below most predictions, and it's also the least lucrative opening of any film in the franchise. The previous record was held by the first Mockingjay installment, which opened with $122 million in ticket sales last year, and that number was well below the $158 earned by the previous installment, Catching Fire.
The other new movies this weekend also had trouble posting big numbers. Seth Rogen's holiday comedy The Night Before finished in fourth place for the weekend with about $10 million. The crime thriller Secret in Their Eyes, starring Julia Roberts, came in fifth with around $7 million.
Mockingjay's relatively weak opening is of concern, since it has no real breathing room before it begins to face real competition. Next week, Pixar's The Good Dinosaur opens and will take most of the younger audience with it, and it's not easy for anyone to get excited about anything else with the opening of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens just a few weeks away.