For a non-sequel released outside summer, without any 3D help, each and every number is mind-boggling. Even if The Dark Knight Rises gets $100m OD and $200m+ OW, I'll still call this the most impressive of all time. People were already discussing TDKR's possibility way in advance, but nothing has risen in term of expectations as fast as The Hunger Games had. Basically we have been keeping doing catch-ups for the past three months in term of its potential, , and it will still come in at the very high end of the optimism even after all these surge in hype. That's just amazing.

Biggest Sat and $160m are still all in play.

I agree on all points. When even BJ underpredicts an opening, you know you've witnessed something special.

And is it too much to ask to see that estimate go above Spider-Man 3's Saturday?

I think it's time

EDIT: Dammit, the pic doesn't work

And I can't believe that this may have just reached an OW number that won't be topped by The Avengers. And that one will have 3D.

EPIC.

With 150 million from The Hunger Games, I really don't see how TDKR DOESN'T get to 200 million at this point.

Can't believe I actually under-predicted the films maximum potential, that has never happend before.

TDKR is going to make 200m its bitch, fuck potter7.2, TDKR gonna smash.

Holy crap.

I think biggest second weekend ever could be in play.

Looking at the biggest openers outside of summer, it seems a pretty safe bet that Hunger Games will fall somewhere between 25-35% on Sunday. If the 50M Saturday holds up, it should beat Spiderman 3 for 3rd biggest opening of all time, but fall a bit short of TDK. Given the wide demographics though, I wouldn't be totally surprised if it did even a bit better and did challenge TDK.

I was going to post something like this.

And the fact that it easily beat HP1's adjusted opening weekend (almost in two days, too), and may even come out above SM1's adjusted opening weekend is unbelievable.

It kinda borders on inexplicable, doesn't it.

Huh? I wouldn't be surprised if it makes less than THG on opening weekend.

The explosion was probably the best special effect in the film, that was pretty damn awesome. I agree with you on each point, the the first book is good but not great, though I like it a lot more than the first potter book, and the entire crap twilight series.

If The Dark Knight Rises comes in lower than $155m, I'll have a jihad on each and every one of you that didn't drag your siblings, parents, cousins, local bums, and the neighbor's cat to see it.

It has alot to do with Twilight and Harry Potter ending. That crowd needed a new franchise to be passionate about.

Hunger Games is also alot like Avatar. It took a lot of familiar elements and grouped them together in a new way.

When a movie centering around a violent scenario involving kids gets tons of positive free press weeks before its release, you know what's gone right.

Or maybe you just need to reach the correct audience for your movie? You have 350-400 milion people in USA and Canada. You might have 25 milion people go and see the movie twice and you are already at 50 milion tickets sold.

LOL

Agree to this. It feels more like in the Percy Jackson/Bridge to Terabithia area rather than LOTR/HP or maybe in between of those in terms of scope.

It's def. in the Top 3 most impressive openings of the past 20 years though one thing that's kind of sad IMO is that tracking and pre-sales data diminished the surprise element of its performance.

So, if the current 50M figure sticks

19.7M Midnights
48.5M Friday
50.0M Saturday (+3.0%)
39.0M Sunday (-22%)

157.2M OW

Now, I've given this Spidey 3's Sunday drop. It could be even stronger, as a 50M Friday would indicate that this thing still had a shitload of demand despite burning off 66M from the previous day and a half. I think sub 15% is possible, but unlikely, however, anything above 15% is pretty much in play.

Those who will argue that this will have a typical March drop of 25-35%, I ask why should it? It didn't see a typical March Saturday increase (only +3%), so why should it start behaving like a typical March film all of a sudden? Just looking at other large non-sequel, non summer openers, such as SM1 and Alice, both rose >20% without midnights on Saturday, and then fell around 30%. This rose only 3%, so the drop should be softened a bit, something we saw occur with SM3, which also rose about 3% on Saturday without midnights.