Pamela McClintock of THR:
Lionsgate's The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1 blasted past Transformers: Age of Extinction to post the top opening of the year domestically, but trailed the first two installments in the YA franchise by a hefty margin.
Mockingjay grossed $23 million from 4,151 locations, down 22 percent from the $158.1 million debut of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire a year ago and 19 percent from the $152.5 million launch of The Hunger Games in March 2012 (both those films shattered numerous records).
The reverse is true overseas, where Mockingjay outperformed the first two films, grossing $152 million for a worldwide bow of $275 million. That's four percent of Catching Fire's foreign take, which opened to $146 million internationally for a worldwide debut of $294.1 million.
Heading into the weekend, most tracking services showed Mockingjay opening to $145 million to $150 million in North America. There are several likely reasons why it didn't hit that mark.
Lionsgate decided to split Collins' final book into two films, and there is arguably less action in Mockingjay — Part 1. Director Frances Lawrence shot the movies back-to-back at a reported cost of $250 million, with Mockingjay — Part 2 is set to open Nov. 20, 2015.
Mockingjay — Part 1 also earned mixed reviews, and audiences gave it an A- CinemaScore, compared to an A for the previous two installments.
And Mockingjay is the first film in the series without an Imax berth (that's because Imax is still carrying Interstellar) but that equates to less than $5 million.
The movie again stars Lawrence opposite Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Jena Malone and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and introduces Julianne Moore and Natalie Dormer to the series based on Suzanne Collins' blockbuster YA book series.
Elsewhere in North America, Disney's animated family film, Big Hero 6, came in No. 2 in its third weekend with an estimated $20.1 million for a domestic total $135.7 million. and early worldwide haul of $185.2 million.
Interstellar took in roughly $15 million in its third outing for a North American cume of $120 million-plus. Both Big Hero 6 and Interstellar continued to enjoy nice holds.
After topping the domestic chart last weekend, Dumb and Dumber To fell a steep 62 percent in its second weekend, grossing $13.8 million for a domestic total of $57.5 million.
In its eighth week in release, David Fincher's box-office sensation Gone Girl rounded out the top five, ending Sunday with north of $156 million domestically.
Next Up: Things kick off on Wednesday due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Stars Jason Bateman, Charlie Day Jason Sudeikis Jamie Foxx Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Aniston are set to reprise their roles for the comedy sequel Horrible Bosses 2. Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) and Chris Pine are gonna play a father/son boss team.
In the new film Bateman, Day and Sudeikis launch their own business and then plan to get revenge on a rogue investor who has taken over their company.
The Penguins of Madagascar are on the march in their first solo movie.
On Friday--The long-awaited awards contending biopic The Imitation Game is here.
The film deals with Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, computer scientist, criminally prosecuted and chemically castrated homosexual, and tortured soul who committed suicide by eating a cyanide-laced apple. Turing was highly influential in the founding of computer science and artificial intelligence, along with devising techniques for breaking German ciphers during the World War II. He was also one of the earliest to explore the biological process of morphogenesis.
Downton Abbey star Allen Leech plays a Scottish spy who worked with the Soviets to plot against Turing. Mark Strong Keira Knightley Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear and Charles Dance also star.
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