Box office report: 'Catching Fire' and 'Frozen' break Thanksgiving records

Box office report: 'Catching Fire' and 'Frozen' break Thanksgiving records

"Stomachs weren’t the only thing full over Thanksgiving weekend — so were movie theaters showing The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The film pulled in a terrific $110.1 million over the Wednesday-to-Sunday period — $74.5 million of that during the traditional weekend frame — which gives the sequel a stunning $296.5 million domestic total after only 10 days. (The film has already pulled in a total of $573 million worldwide.) Catching Fire set a new record for both the 3-day and 5-day Thanksgiving weekend, surpassing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which grossed $57.5 million/$82.4 million in 2001. Lionsgate’s $130 million sequel is now on track to easily outgross The Hunger Games‘ $408 million domestic total. And if it maintains this pace, it could climb above $450 million.

Amazingly, Disney’s animated musical Frozen also broke Harry Potter‘s records during its opening weekend, though it wasn’t quite as gigantic as Catching Fire. Frozen grossed $93 million over five days and $66.7 million from Friday to Sunday. That number easily trumped Disney’s last animated princess film, Tangled, which grossed $68.1 million over its five-day Thanksgiving debut. Frozen scored with audiences, earning an A+ CinemaScore, which will help it earn back its $150 million budget (and much, much more) in no time.

No film fared as badly as Spike Lee’s remake of Oldboy, which grossed just $1.3 million from 583 theaters between Wednesday until Sunday ($850,000 between Friday and Sunday). The film’s awful $1,458 per-theater average won’t merit further expansion in the weeks to come."