The Hunger Games opening weekend tally adds up to $155M domestic + $58.7M international for a total of $213.7M worldwide. Third biggest opening of all time. Deadline digs into the marketing strategy:
What made Lionsgate’s promotional campaign for The Hunger Games so unusual and probably effective was that the studio stuck to the rare strategy of not showing any footage of the games themselves in any marketing materials. So all that staggering amount of interest in this film was incited with no one having actually seen even a hint of over half the movie… Between the release of the first Hunger Games trailer in November 2011 and January 2012, the number of Collins’ books sold nearly doubled. By the time of the film’s opening, Hunger Games was on over 50 magazine covers… The studio estimates its TV on-air promotions and sponsorships reached over 102 million people in America.
(Side note: My moviedate and I got seated late so we missed most of the trailers. We were there in time to see the audience appear somewhat mystified by the preview featuring 19th-century evildoers — then express their approval in a roar of laughter and applause when the title came up, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It was clear that many people around us were hearing about that movie for the first time. Always a mild surprise when I realize the entire country doesn’t hound trailer sites like some of the rest of us do. When a film has as much saturation as The Hunger Games, everything attached to it gets a boost. I’m curious to hear which trailers — or other ads — got the best reaction at the screening you attended.)
Adding to the great reviews around the globe (87% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), domestic audiences gave The Hunger Games an ‘A’ Cinemascore with under-age 18 teens/tweens rating it ‘A+’, an indication of their extreme satisfaction with the movie. Rival studios say The Hunger Games, unlike the Twilight Saga, has expanded from attracting both younger and older females initially now to younger makes as a 3-quadrant movie. And the heat from the anticipation by teens and tweens is making those adults who tap into the cultural zeitgeist start getting interested. So now it’s a 4-quadrant film. Amazingly, NRG tracking showed that over 90% of moviegoers said they were aware of the film right before its release, and roughly 2 out of 3 moviegoers in America who said they were “definitely” going to the movies this weekend were buying a ticket to see The Hunger Games.