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Audiences still craving 'The Hunger Games' as it posts $61.1 million weekend

Even shiny new releases were no match for ‘The Hunger Games’, which topped the box office for a second straight weekend—without breaking a sweat. Despite a 60% drop in ticket sales compared to last weekend, ‘The Hunger Games’ still pulled in $61.1 million over the weekend, nearly double the gross of its nearest competitor, ‘Wrath of the Titans’. Over a mere ten days, ‘The Hunger Games’ has nearly quadrupled its $78 million budget, which should make the folks at Lionsgate very happy; it’s expected to pass the $250 million mark by Sunday, which would make it the fifth-fastest film ever to reach that number, and the first among non-sequels.

Meanwhile, in second place, ‘Wrath of the Titans’ had a fairly wimpy opening, pulling in $34.2 million over the weekend. Given the film’s $150 million budget, it has a long way to go to break even, let alone make a profit. By comparison, when ‘Clash of the Titans’ opened in 2010, it pulled in $61.2 million over opening weekend and managed to hold onto the number one spot at the box office for two full weekends.

Tarsem Singh’s ‘Mirror Mirror’ opened in third place, pulling in $19 million. It’s an underwhelming figure, but the movie has struggled to find a target audience and is competing with ‘The Hunger Games’ for the eyes of female moviegoers. However, with the Easter holiday ahead, it might be able to pull in solid numbers over the coming week from family moviegoers

’21 Jump Street’ took fourth place with $15 million, while ‘Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax’ took fifth place with $8 million. That film has nearly tripled its $70 million budget over roughly a month, pulling in nearly $190 million in the domestic market; that’s better even than ‘Horton Hears a Who!’, which pulled in a lifetime gross of $155 million over about eight months.

One final note for the weekend: the controversial documentary ‘Bully’ opened in a mere 5 theatres, no doubt largely due to the Weinstein Bros.’ decision to ditch the MPAA’s ‘R’ rating and release the film unrated. ‘Bully’ pulled in an impressive $23,000 per theatre, but it’s going to take much more than a $115,000 weekend to let this documentary live up to its massive hype.

Scene Creek

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