To our knowledge, we were the first ones to publicly state that “The Hunger Games” would break the opening weekend record in March (Alice In Wonderland currently holds the title with $116.1 million). But even we didn’t think things would blow up this much. You’ve seen the reports on pre-sale tickets and box office tracking, but now comes the big boom: this film will open in 4,137 North American theaters this weekend. That makes the film the 12th largest release ever—and this is for a MARCH opening!Deadline broke the news on the theaters, also saying that Lionsgate will have over 10,000 prints playing throughout the U.S. and Canada. And it gets even better—this will be Lionsgate’s largest release ever, and the number of showtimes keeps going up by the hour. Will “The Hunger Games” be able to jam in enough showings into the weekend to surpass the opening take by “Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part I?” That film opened on a Thanksgiving weekend, giving it a great few days to drive numbers.The 12:01 AM Friday showings are absolutely expected to crush it. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the film take in $35 million for those showings alone.Stay tuned for more news as the week progresses.
