Friday Estimates: Hunger Games Smashes Non-Sequel Single Day Record
March 24, 2012
Lionsgate have announced a massive opening day of $68.25 million for The Hunger Games, which is by a large margin the biggest ever day for a non-sequel film:
This day sets the film up for an opening of about $145 million, based on analysis of big opening weekends since 2005 (click here to see the chart, and here to download the raw data). In fact, a linear regression based on the 55 films in the sample gives a projected opening weekend of $146,646,093, and we can say with 95% confidence that the total weekend gross will be between $116,731,410 and $176,560,776.
In other words, it's virtually certain that Alice in Wonderland's record for biggest weekend by a non-sequel film will be broken, and there's a (very) small chance that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II will be dethroned as the record holder for biggest ever weekend. Most likely, The Hunger Games will end up 4th on the list of record weekends at the box office.
Bruce Nash bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
Filed under: Friday Estimates, The Hunger Games