It's fair to say The Hunger Games has exceeded expectations. Lionsgate's action thriller was always going to perform strongly, but nobody in their wildest dreams predicted $460m (£290m) worldwide box office after three weeks. That's what the movie has grossed to date, and at this rate it will reach the half-billion threshold. That is an extraordinarily mouth-watering number for the studio's top executives because there are two books still to go in what is now an established property – and, therefore, there is likely to be three more movies if they split the finale in two a la Twilight and Harry Potter. And everyone knows what happens to sequels of hits – it's the gift that keeps on giving.
You have to admire the studio's well calibrated social marketing campaign and those tantalising theatrical trailers and TV spots that showed just enough to reel in audiences but never so much that we got to see even a second of the combat sequences. It worked like a dream, and the result has been a four-quadrant smash that appeals to male, female, older and young moviegoers.
The Hunger Games has delivered perfection to studio top brass after Lionsgate's recent merger with Summit, and it's all the more timely because it is Lionsgate's first bona fide hit franchise – Saw started well in 2004 but after six sequels dissolved into a moth-eaten concept that was hardly setting the worldwide box office on fire. The Hunger Games has already grossed more in North America than any Twilight episode – the weekend's $33.5m haul results in a $302.8m running total – although the global tally is not yet as good as either of the last two Twilight movies.
The Lionsgate executives can live with that; after all, they own Twilight now that they have bought out Summit. Kudos must go to Joe Drake, the outgoing president of the motion picture division who championed Suzanne Collins's books and shepherded the studio adaptation. Drake, like others in the wake of the merger, will be leaving Lionsgate shortly and goes with his head held high: he's proved himself a first-rate businessman who, among other achievements, built production outfit Mandate into a powerhouse before it was acquired by – you guessed it – Lionsgate. Word in Hollywood is Drake has an option to take back Mandate, and the industry will watch his next move with interest.
Speaking of powerhouses, two familiar concepts lapped up against box office shores over the long holiday weekend. Universal's hit comedy series American Pie has spawned another one, American Reunion, and it opened second on a so-so $21.5m, but performed well overseas in a $19.3m day-and-date launch with North America.
Fox, meanwhile, has reformatted the second biggest movie of all time (unadjusted for inflation) and pushed Titanic back into the water in 3D nearly 15 years after it set sail on its maiden voyage. The studio said the $17.4m debut in third place was in the ballpark of what it expected.
North American top 10, 6 - 8 April 2012
1 The Hunger Games, $33.5m. Total: $302.8m
2 American Reunion, $21.5m
3 Titanic 3D, $17.4m. Total: $25.7m
4 Wrath of the Titans, $15m. Total: $58.9m
5 Mirror Mirror, $11m. Total: $36.5m
6 21 Jump Street, $10.2m. Total: $109.6m
7 Dr Seuss' The Lorax, $5m. Total: $198.2m
8 Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, $975,000. Total: $4.6m
9 John Carter, $820,000. Total: $67.9m
10 Safe House, $581,000. Total: $124.8m
