The fourth and final movie in the Hunger Games franchise — the saga that turned Jennifer Lawrence into a Hollywood mega-star — ruled the North American box offices over the weekend, early results showed Sunday.
“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2” raked in $101 million in ticket sales in its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, according to ticket-sales tracker Exhibitor Relations.
“Mockingjay, Part 2,” however, failed to best the take of its predecessor, “Mockingjay, Part 1,” which opened at $121.9 million, according to competing tracker Rentrak.
Nevertheless the Hunger Games movie franchise, based on a trio of best-selling young-adult fantasy novels by Suzanne Collins, had already grossed some $2.2 billion worldwide before the latest opening, according to Lionsgate, the studio that produced the films.
The books and the movies tell the story of Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence), a teenage heroine pitched into a deadly battle for survival in the macabre post-apocalyptic nation of Panem.
In second place was “Spectre,” the latest James Bond movie, with gross sales of $14.6 million.
The star-studded spy thriller — with Daniel Craig as 007, and including Italian beauty Monica Bellucci and Austrian Oscar winner Christoph Waltz as the villain — has raked in $153.7 million in its three weeks in cinemas.
Third in popularity was the computer-animated 3D cartoon “The Peanuts Movie,” which pulled in $12.8 million.
The family-friendly film was the first big-screen rendering in 35 years for the comic-book characters created by the late Charles Schulz, who died in 2000.
Two debuts also made the top five list: “The Night Before,” a buddy comedy starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen, with $10.1 million; and “Secret In Their Eyes,” a murder mystery starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman, at $6.6 million.
The rest of the top ten were:
6. “Love The Coopers,” ($3.9 million)
7. “The Martian,” ($3.7 million)
8. “Spotlight,” ($3.6 million)
9. “The 33,” ($2.2 million)
10. “Bridge Of Spies,” ($2 million.)