Lionsgate's sequel "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" was off to a marvelous start at the North American box office, easily beating last weekend's winner "Thor: The Dark World."
"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" thrashed other competitions over its first weekend at the box office with an estimated 161.1 million U.S. dollars in 4,163 theaters and generated the second best debut of 2013 behind "Iron Man 3".
Only three films have ever opened higher than "Catching Fire" of all time. Marvel's "The Avengers" holds the No. 1 place with a stunning 207.4 million dollars. "Iron Man 3" is the second with 174.1 million dollars, and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" marks the third with 169.2 million dollars.
The U.S. Lionsgate studio spent 130 million dollars on the film, much more than the original "Hunger Games"'78 million dollars budget.
The sequel also receives a high reputation overseas.
Internationally, "Catching Fire" opens in more than 60 markets, including China, getting 307.7 million dollars global opening. That's 45 percent better than the first film's 211.8 million dollars worldwide debut in March 2012.
Moviegoers who saw the film this weekend awarded the film an "A " CinemaScore grade, and Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an 89 percent "fresh" score.
Directed by Francis Lawrence, the sequel returns Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth and Jennifer Lawrence who won an Academy Award for best actress last year for her work in David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook" in the lead roles.
"Thor: The Dark World" slipped from the top to the second place this weekend. "Thor" fell 61 percent to 14.1 million dollars, giving the 170 million dollars marvel film a 167.8 million dollars gross after three weekends.
In third place, Malcolm D. Lee's African-American comedic sequel "The Best Man Holiday" fell by a hefty 58 percent in its second weekend to 12.5 million dollars for a domestic total of 50. 4 million dollars.
Rounding out the 10 most popular films in North America this weekend, as estimated by studios, were "Delivery Man" (8.2 million dollars), "Free Birds" (5.3 million), "Last Vegas" (4.4 million), "Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa" (3.5 million), "Gravity" (3.3 million), "12 Years a Slave" (2.8 million) and "Dallas Buyers Club " (2.8 million).