The 2014 Thanksgiving box office won’t set any new records, but the complete domination of Mockingjay – Part 1 will at least prove that there’s a lot of life left in The Hunger Games franchise.  After opening more than 20% below Catching Fire last weekend, the penultimate chapter in the saga of Katniss Everdeen had no trouble staying ahead of Thanksgiving’s new releases: The Penguins of Madagascar and Horrible Bosses 2.   Both opened on Wednesday, though the two films combined didn't come close to Mockingjay – Part 1’s $49.7 million estimate for the first three days of the long holiday frame.  As expected, Katniss cleaned up on Black Friday with an estimated $24.1 million, or a drop of 56% from the film’s opening one week ago.

Full story after the jump.

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Mockingjay – Part 1 should ring up another $80 million between Wednesday and Sunday, topping the five-day Thanksgiving hauls of both Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2Mockingjay will still trail Catching Fire (not to mention Frozen) in terms of all-time Thanksgiving records, though it still has a chance to claim the third-highest holiday ever, ahead of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

This year’s new releases got off to a slow start.  The Penguins of Madagascar, a spin-off from DreamWorks Animation’s wildly successful Madagascar franchise, opened with an estimated $6.2 million on Wednesday and $3.9 million on Thanksgiving day.  After claiming a reported $10.5 million yesterday, Penguins is expected to remain in second place this weekend with just over $26 million, or $36 million for the five-day frame.

Thanksgiving is not known for hosting many R-rated comedies, but Warner Bros. is bravely bucking that trend with Horrible Bosses this year.  Back in the summer of 2011, Horrible Bosses was a sleeper hit: opening to $28.3 million on its way to a $117 million domestic total.  The sequel took in just $7.3 million for Wednesday and Thursday combined, and came in below holdovers Big Hero 6 and Interstellar on day one of the three-day holiday weekend.  On this notoriously family-friendly frame, the comedy is expected to bring in less than $24 million for its first five days.

We’ll have complete box office details tomorrow, including the expansion of The Theory of Everything and the platform debut of The Imitation Game.

 Title

Friday

Total

1.

 Mockingjay – Part 1

$24,100,000

$192.7

2.

 Penguins of Madagascar

$10,500,000

$20.7

3.

 Big Hero 6

$7,742,000

$156.1

4.

 Interstellar

$6,600,000

$137.9

5.

 Horrible Bosses 2

$6,200,000

$13.5