The anticipated sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opened last night for special Thursday previews and distributor Lionsgate is reporting that it grossed $25.3 million from showings of the movie starting at 8 p.m.
This amount is 28% higher than the Thursday gross of The Hunger Games, although it probably doesn’t take into account that “Catching Fire” had more and earlier screenings, plus there was a lot more anticipation for the sequel. This is less than the $30.6 million brought in from midnight screenings for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, which opened in the middle of summer, but considerably more than the $15.6 million made by Iron Man 3 in Thursday previews this past May. The former movie went on to an opening weekend of $160.9 million while the latter opened with $174.1 million, the second-largest domestic opening ever.
Internationally, the movie has already opened in 43 territories where it’s brought in an estimated $32 million with many territories taking in more than twice the opening of the original movie. It opens in 65 more territories this weekend including the UK, Australia, Germany, China, Russia, Mexico and more which should see it being the #1 movie globally by weekend’s end.
