The odds were definitely in The Hunger Games' favor last night, as the film is already breaking records before it has even been in theaters an entire day. Lionsgate released the film last night in just over 2500 theaters and scored an unbelievable $19.75M. That is the most ever for a non-sequel midnight debut, and the 7th highest of all-time period. Opening in IMAX for a one week run, it also earned $1.3M at 269 such screens, the most for a non-summer, non-holiday 2D movie. By comparison, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight hauled in a massive $18.5M back in 2008.
With analyst projections trending towards a $130M+ opening weekend, The Hunger Games appears to be on the cusp of taking over the top franchise spot from The Twilight Saga. On Fandango, The Hunger Games has already sold out at more than 3500 screenings for the weekend, and has surpassed Twilight in terms of advanced ticket orders.
Lionsgate isn't waiting to capitalize on The Hunger Games phenomenon, setting a November 22nd 2013 release date for the sequel, Catching Fire. Simon Beaufoy(Slumdog Millionaire) is currently writing the script
