This year’s long Thanksgiving box office is off to a promising start for its two major players. After setting a new November record with its $158 million debut last weekend, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is now poised to break the five-day Thanksgiving record with about $95 million in projected earnings between Wednesday and Sunday. The holiday’s previous record was $82.3 million, set by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone way back in 2001. Catching Fire passed $200 million on Wednesday, its sixth day in theatres (The Hunger Games took eight days to hit the same mark), and will top $500 million worldwide by this weekend.
In more surprising news, it looks like Catching Fire may not be the only film to break a record this Thanksgiving. Frozen, the latest feature from Disney Animation opened on Wednesday with a very promising $15.2 million. Frozen was originally expected to take in about $65 million in its first five days, putting it behind 2010’s Tangled in terms of successful Thanksgiving debuts. But after a stronger than expected Thursday showing, Frozen is now tracking closer to $82 million through Sunday, which would put it ahead of both Tangled and long-time record holder Toy Story 2 on the list of Thanksgiving’s best box office openings.
We’ll have complete details on the long holiday box office this weekend.
Title | Wednesday | Thursday | Total | |
1. | The Hunger Games: Catching Fire | $20.7 | $14.9 | $221.9 |
2. | Frozen | $15.21 | $11.08 | $26.6 |
3. | Thor: The Dark World | $2.34 | $2.04 | $175.6 |
4. | Homefront | $1.42 | $1.40 | $2.8 |
5. | Delivery Man | $1.31 | $1.43 | $12.5 |