As we haven’t let you forget, we were the first site to publicly state that “The Hunger Games” would break the March opening weekend record (currently held by “Alice in Wonderland at $116.1 million). We’ve seen predictions today ranging from $80 million to $150 million for the next three days. With the huge amount of buzz surrounding the film, it’s hard to believe that the projections are so spread out, but like hurricanes, everyone uses different models.This movie has a lot going for it. With 4,137 locations and 10,000 screens and growing (theaters are adding 3AM showings tonight—yes, THREE IN THE MORNING). Fandango and MovieTickets.com have reportedly sold over 1 million tickets and sold out 4,300 screenings. Movie theaters are approaching $20 million in advance sales. All of that adds up to some nice numbers right there.The film has been tracking well among young readers of the books—12-18 years old, and both sexes are well represented. But what people aren’t taking into account are the moms that are going to see this film because of their 10 year old that has read the books. They’re not tracking the millions of recent (last couple of months) readers of the book. Heck, I read the trilogy on Amazon for free because I’m a Prime member. I doubt those numbers are being tracked accurately.And while the NCAA Basketball Tournament Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games going on all weekend, there are a lot of fans whose teams have already been eliminated. Throw in the fact that there are no good guy movies out (John Carter did poorly at the box office) until “Wrath of the Titans” next week, and I think we’re going to see a lot more men in the audience than expected.I could go on and on about the reasons why this film will do well this weekend (Rotten Tomatoes score, high praises from critics, one heck of a marketing campaign by Lionsgate, Jennifer Lawrence), but I’ll just give you our prediction.According to BoxOfficeMojo, here are your top grossing weekends of all time:
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- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II: $169,189,427
- The Dark Knight: $158,411,483
- Spider-Man 3: $151,116,516
- The Twilight Saga: New Moon: $142,839,137
- The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part I: $138,122,261
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest: $135,634,554
- Iron Man 2: $128,122,480
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I: $125,017,372
- Shrek the Third: $121,629,270
- Alice in Wonderland: $116,101,023
We’ve already said this “The Hunger Games” will top “Alice in Wonderland” and many of the other films on this list were summer or holiday openings. But based on everything this film has going for it—and throwing in IMAX showings—we think that the Jack Sparrow and his crew will be saying ARGH (and not in a good way), as “The Hunger Games” takes over the #6 all time opening weekend slot.Our prediction: $139,755,000
