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Certainly, Catching Fire's box-office haul will be huge, but what fatal flaw could keep it from a record-breaking weekend? Let's break it down.
Last year, the first installment in the franchise took home over $152 million in its first weekend. Not bad, but people are expecting bigger things for Catching Fire, which, for what it's worth, has better reviews than its predecessor, and has been killing it (no pun intended) overseas. Box Office Mojo is currently forecasting a $167 million opening weekend for the film, while Andrew Stewart at Variety hedged a little saying that expectations are at "north of $150 million domestically" though some think it could surpass $160 million. Grady Smith at Entertainment Weekly, meanwhile, is even more optimistic and predicts it could make $175 million. How high does it need to go to break some key domestic records?
To have the best opening weekend of all time it will need to beat...The Avengers, duh. Marvel's superhero extravaganza brought in $207.4 million and went on to be the third highest grossing film of all time. Can Katniss take down Tony Stark and his buddies? Unfortunately, when you frame it that way, probably not.