The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 managed to hold onto the top of the US Box Office, during one of the slowest weekends for movies of 2014. While the dystopian drama, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth, retained it's position at the top of the charts, it did so with $21.6 million a figure that would've have it placed third for the same weekend last year.
While Hunger Games has grossed nearly $600million worldwide since it's release, the comparisons with the success of Catching Fire last year, has the third installment of the Suzanne Collins tale lagging behind. DreamWorks Animation's Penguins of Madagascar came in second with $11 million while the Horrible Bosses sequel, starring Jennifer Aniston, took third place with $8.6 million. In comparison to last year, when Frozen was at number one with a far healthier $31.6 million and Catching Fire coming second with $26.2 million, it's a rather disappointing view for the movie industry.
Katniss and co have topped the Box Office for third week (LionsgateEntertainment)
The weekend total was $76,027,500, down around $20 million from the same weekend last year, which took a healthy $94,535,353. So why wasn't anyone interested in hitting the movies this weekend? It could well be to do with the lack of any decent movies out. There were 96 films available in theatres across the US last year, in comparison to just 33 this year and check out the top three - they're all sequels, meaning the biggest movies on offer are reliant on fans on the first one coming back. Unlike Catching Fire, which was only the second movie, Mockingjay feels like the end of the Hunger Games is on the horizon. We doubt many people will want to part with their money for a movie that is deep into it's story, if they haven't already seen the first two.
While there's been a tradition in the adaptation of major franchise to divide the last book, audiences are getting wise to it. Part 1, it feels is always a bit of a linking movie rather than a stand alone picture and it could well be because fans are getting used to this type of method by studios to squeeze as much money out of fans as possible, that they're less bothered about catching this one on the big screen. We all know that Part 2 will have all the action and plot twists and the first movie sets up the action for the pay-off in the next one.
Still, Mockingjay is by no means a failure and is set to come in as the second biggest grossing movie of 2014 behind, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. Still forecasters would've expected it to better the Marvel spin-off.
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