In my time following box office, I have never been so surprised by an opening weekend number.

Even with some time to reflect in retrospect, this remains in my mind the most impressive opening weekend number of all time, as if a new era in box office is upon us.

If we hadn't seen any tracking numbers, if we hadn't read any studio speculations anywhere, if we hadn't seen any advance sales numbers, etc - it seems we'd all have been shocked beyond belief when the opening of The Hunger Games doubled or even tripled the average expectations.

Only in retrospect can we say such things like a void was left by Harry Potter, the Twilight franchise opened up a new moviegoing segment and is soon going to leave another void in the market, the marketing for the film was top notch, the book series fandom is rapidly growing and well-received, etc.

The fact is, this property has absolutely shattered some records relative to key aspects of the film itself:

1. Non-sequel. Highest opening weekend, perhaps even ticket sales. This is the big one.

Spider-man in 2002 arguably sold more tickets, though according to Mojo the two are about the same. I give Hunger Games the edge for one key reason. Spider-man is one the top few most popular and recognized superhero characters of all time, with many decades of fandom built up. It also came on the heels of the superhero film revival and big Marvel film genesis kicked off by X-men, though you could argue that Twilight did a similar thing for Hunger Games.

Next down is Passion of the Christ (if you adjust for it's non-Friday opening as well). This had a few more decades (or centuries) of fandom built up you could argue. It was by far the biggest budget treatment of the crucifixion story ever shown, and by far the biggest Christian mythology film since the days of Ben Hur and the The Ten Commandments. In a nation dense with Christians, and otherwise curious moviegoers not yet turned off by Mel Gibson, sill a very popular filmmaker at the time, it wasn't really that hard of a sell.

Films like Independence Day and Transformers, while extremely impressive, were mega budget patriotic disaster films opening around the big early July holiday period, making them very ripe for mega openings.

Finally we get to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which many feel was more primed than the Hunger Games for a huge opening. It was at the time a book series known for vitalizing the young readers market in a way not seen in a very long time. The general feeling was that it would appeal to families, teens, and adults alike, and about equally to both sexes, whereas The Hunger Games seemed like a more restricted teen and female audience, perhaps more closely resembling the Twilight audience than that of Harry Potter, but certainly not wider than Potter.

Alice in Wonderland technically held the record for a non-sequel opening, though much inflated with 3D ticket prices and 3D interest ripe on the heels of Avatar, which had recently destroyed the all-time opening weekend record set more than a decade previously. People were primed for the next big revolution in film. Besides, Alice is another classic character and story with decades of fans built up, plus add in the Tim Burton and Johnny Depp team and you've got a guaranteed hit, not to take too much away from the impressiveness of the opening we saw.

2. Action Heroine. Films starring a female action lead are always a tough sell to a general audience. Previously, Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was tops in the genre, and Angelina was already a big name by then, and considered ideal casting for what had become somewhat of a cultural icon by then. It's opening today adjusts in the neighborhood of 70m. The Hunger Games did not have these advantages, if they could indeed be called that, and sunk that record to an absurd degree.

For the most part, films in the subgenre generally need (or seemed to need) either a bigger male lead or needed multiple established names to open well, and almost all targeted an adult audience.

3. Future Earth / Dystopia The future of Earth seems to be a tough topic for people to get interested in, especially if the outlook is bleak. The Matrix Reloaded is a rare exception, opening to a number that is comparable to The Hunger Games when adjusted for ticket prices and a Friday opening. But once again that film was a hotly anticipated sequel to a movie which became incredibly popular and an icon in the culture synonymous with cool.

Will Smith became an icon for this kind of film following Independence Day, and largely with his brand was able to open I Am Legend in the neighborhood of 90m adjusted for inflation.

Other films in set in the future rely strongly upon previous films within a franchise and/or long-established popular characters to open well.

In terms of a dystopian environment, other that the previously mentioned films, you might as well forget about it - only scattered fanboys are usually interested, and typically rely upon material from video games (eg. Resident Evil) or graphic novels (eg. V for Vendetta) which are media that lend themselves to such an environment better.

The Hunger Games skirted the issue somewhat by appearing only ambiguously futuristic and more fantasy than sci -fi, but the dystopian element was rather pronounced.

And the notion of fighting in a society-sponsored battle for survival has never been met with any sizable audience in film. Films like the Japanese Battle Royale usually get only a modest cult following. The Hunger Games is a rather strong sign that the moral zeitgeist in society has shifted in this respect.

To summarize the sentiments from the What Went Right thread - simply every aspect of making and marketing a film that you can think of went right for this film, and then some.

Interested to hear other opinions. Agree or disagree? Further evidence in favor or against this?

If you think another opening is more impressive - compared to expectations, genre, etc, state which one and why.

I say "ever" is too much.

I'd say it is still arguable but it is one of the most impressive opening weekend for sure. While people really don't believe it, the effect of Harry Potter and Twilight was huge not only in terms of them getting over. What I believe is that those movies have generated a new sort of book-reading-and-movie-going teen genre and Hunger Games got the best of both worlds being a love story and a fantasy world.

There is nothing to take away from its opening though, it will regardless be the most impressive opening weekend of the year unless we see $250m OW.

Well you already where that was pointed

Unless people take a break I think first $200m+ opener is possible this year and you never know DH2 might not even stand #2 at the end of the year.

For now, yes, unless if TDKR breaks 200m OW.

You're right. We should make that benchmark 250m instead.

Yeah, I'd say it's definitely the most impressive OW of all time. How the rest of its run stands up will be another matter (That's usually what makes for an all-time impressive Box Office run), but for OW, I'd say it's tops. Phenomenal.

If we are talking about the movie's run, your reasoning is justified but since we are only comparing this to other OWs, what it makes through the rest of its run has no bearing on its massive OW.

It's already impressively not frontloaded just in the first few days' numbers I'd say.

I wonder how big a role social networking played in this. Facebook appears to have had its biggest growth period between Twitter and New Moon, and is largely female driven. And Twitter got on the map.



red = facebook
blue = twitter

Oh, I thought you were talking about the film's overall run. Nevermind.

It's a bold statement yes, without really knowing all the openings throughout film history and being able to rank them in various ways.

But no one was keeping track, so it's kind of irrelevant. We can all assume we're just talking about the openings we know of.

Besides, before records were kept, openings weren't very big anyway - it was more about the total.

And for those saying no, it's not the most impressive, you have to have an alternative and good explanation why.

Incidentally, I could see Fahrenheit 9/11 being in consideration, since it did more than 100 times the next biggest political documentary up to that point. The other Lions Gate astonisher.

Already expressed my opinion in various places, including my own blog, so yes.

Opening weekends of films about a bunch of people who must fight to the death as some sort of entertainment or tradition for society:

The Hunger Games, 152.5
Death Race, 12.6
Gamer, 9.2
Rollerball, 9.0
The Running Man, 8,1
The Condemned, 3.8

If it had stayed above Spider-Man's adjusted OW, it would have clearly been the most impressive opening weekend ever. However, given that Spider-Man was a very well known property, had major studio backing, etc., I still think The Hunger Games comes out ahead here and voted "yes".

Easily the most impressive since TDK easily...

TDK is way up there yes, but had too much going for it to be called more impressive than HG. Batman has busted up the record books many times in the past.

Only the ultra-garbage Batman and Robin and its successor (having to overcome it) didn't do it.

Plus Joker, Ledger, wom from Begins, etc. It was always going to be massive.

Probably yes just ahead of Spider-man. As Magnus said - lets see how the legs are. If its mega frontloaded (which I doubt it will be) it will sway me towards Spidey or The Passion.

Spidey may have been a well known property but probably wasnt as red hot back in 2002 as compared to THG books in 2012.

In fairness to Hunger Games - the shock of the OW we had with Spidey wasnt there thanks to all the tracking and reports in the weeks before its release. So if I take the whole tracking thing out - THG would be even more exciting and even more of a surprise.

Passion was crazy, a 15% Sunday drop is crazy in March.

Putting in perspective, it would have likley stayed flat or increased if it was the summer.

Yes, what tips it over the top for me is that it was in March of all things. I remember back when people thought it was a risk opening a major movie in early May, as opposed to late May because it might lower the chance of being big with not everyone being out of school.

Proud Ryu, would you have time to put together a ranking chart or something that let everyone here rank the films they believe had the most impressive opening weekends ever? A first place ranking might equal 10 points, second place 9, and so on. Whatever ranking system you'd like. Perhaps when it's complete, someone could post an article on the results on the home page.

Based on the poll results, The Hunger Games looks like the favorite to top the list, but films 2-5 or even 2-10 would be very interesting.

I think release dates are mostly just perception. Holidays and vacations help, but it largely just redistributes grosses, especially for franchise pics.

Surely the most impressive weekend ever, followed closely by the $114m opening of the original Spider-Man.

Honestly, in terms of awe nothing cmes close to Spider-Man crushing the magicsal $100 million mark by almost $15 million back in 2002. Seriously, do you remember that incredible moment?

Yeah I remember I was watching TV back in 2001.

Was like 13...

I heard about the huge numbers for Titanic but nothing ever since...

Then I heard the film made 114 million and it was big news. I was amazed, wow a film made 100 million dollars in a weekend.

Ever since I followed the box office by looking at the grosses of the Lotr films on Box office Mojo and following ever since.