Box office review: Katniss or the Queen?

Catching Fire, Frozen heat up Thanksgiving film box office.

LOS ANGELES: Action film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire led the North American box office with ticket sales of $35.6 million over the first two days of the long US Thanksgiving weekend that began on Wednesday, while Disney’s animated Frozen, sold a hefty $26.3 million.

Catching Fire, the second installment of the Hunger Games franchise, grossed $14.9 million on Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day holiday according to studio Lions Gate. That broke the record previously held by Toy Story 2, which earned $13.1 million on Thanksgiving in 1999, according to Rentrak.



The film, starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence as heroine Katniss Everdeen, was released on November 22 and has earned $222 million at the domestic box office to date. Industry insiders are projecting that Catching Fire is likely to take $90 million from Wednesday to Sunday.

Disney’s Frozen, inspired by The Snow Queen fairytale, is the story of a Scandinavian princess who must reconnect with her sister, the Queen, who has the power of freezing anything into ice with her hands, and accidentally sets off a long winter that is destroying their kingdom. The film is projected to earn upwards of $40 million at the domestic box office according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.

Superhero film Thor: The Dark World, part of Disney’s Marvel universe, had ticket sales of $4.3 million between Wednesday and Thursday, bringing its cumulative domestic total to $175.6 million since its release on November 8.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2013.

Like Life & Style on Facebook, follow @ETLifeandStyle on Twitter for the latest in fashion, gossip and entertainment.