The Hunger Games is already Lionsgate’s largest initial theater release in history. In the U.S. and Canada alone, more than four thousand theaters will have 10,000 copies of the movie in rotation, putting the movie at the twelfth widest box office opening in history.
Not bad for an action movie with a female lead. Reports from the rest of the world, hours ahead of us, are already breaking the records set by other blockbusters.
From Deadline:
The hotly anticipated movie scored a huge $1.8 million (USD) in Australia. (For the record, the gross was AUS 1,741,000 on 471 screens which is about $1.8M USD.) My sources say that’s bigger than the debuts down under for Iron Man ($1.0M) and Quantum Of Solace ($1.0M), although not Transformers 2 ($2.1M).
At this point, notes Deadline, it’s not a question of how many people want to see it, but how many theaters will have staff on hand to run the movie all weekend.
Sounds like Lionsgate is in for an amazing opening weekend. So naturally they’re threatening take down notices on fan-run charity Imagine Better (a broader pan-fandom charity group formed originally by the Harry Potter Alliance) if they don’t change the name of their Hunger is not a Game campaign against world hunger. See, Lionsgate’s already decided to partner with the UN’s World Food Program and Feeding America. The studio was vigorously expressing their support of Imagine Better’s Hunger Games related campaing back in February, but now they seem to think that the name Hunger is not a Game is “piggy-backing” off of their IP, and diluting it.
Not great PR for your blockbuster opening weekend, Lionsgate. Cut it out.
(via Deadline and ThinkProgress.)
