The appetite for "The Hunger Games" is so great that early tracking data is is predicted the movie will eclipse the $138.1 million debut of last year's "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1."
"We get caught up with all this hype, but it's actually going to be a rare instance where the critics like it and the audience likes it," says Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com. "The only thing I can compare it to is 'Twilight,' in terms of the fervor of the fans."
"Look, 'Lorax' did $70 million in its first weekend at the box office, and this film cuts across all four quandrants."
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Dergarabedian cautions it's too early before the film's March 23 release date to predict exact dollars and cents. After all, he says, "Avatar" opened with $77 million, but kept rolling for weeks until it became the highest-grossing movie of all time.
"The Hunger Games" is set in a dystopian future where 12- to 18-year-olds fight to the death for the amusement of the capital city of an unrecognizable America — a battle in which heroine Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) finds herself a competitor.
Like "Twilight," there's a love triangle — in this case, involving fellow contestant Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Katniss' best friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) — but unlike the vampire romance saga, "The Hunger Games" enough action to keep males as interested as their dates.
At a bare minimum, the movie is a threat to dump 2010's "Alice in Wonderland," the previous record-holder for a March opening with $116.1 million, back down the rabbit hole.
"Numbers don't get much higher than this," a rival studio executive told The Hollywood Reporter. "'Hunger Games' is tracking like a sequel, even though it isn't a sequel. It's three times higher than the first 'Twilight.'"
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