Hunger Games devours US box office

The Hunger Games sequel has stormed to the top of the US box office chart with takings of $161m.

But ‘Catching Fire’ narrowly failed to become the biggest opener of the year, falling short of ‘Iron Man 3’s debut of $174m. The movie, starring Jennifer Lawrence, did achieve the most successful November opening of all time. Its performance dominated cinema-going in North America, with nearest rival ‘Thor’ taking in a mere $14.1m. The only other new entry, Disney comedy ‘Delivery Man’, starring Vince Vaughn, had to settled for fourth place and box office returns of $8.2m. ‘Catching Fire’ managed the fourth biggest US opening of all time, behind ‘The Avengers’, ‘Iron Man 3’ and ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘The Deathly Hallows: Part II’. More complicated box office marketing in recent years has boosted box office returns, with higher-priced Imax and 3D tickets and early Thursday night screenings being taken into account.