The Hunger Games: Song of Birds and Snakes, the new film in the Lionsgate franchise based on the books by Suzanne Collins, topped the box office in its debut with a gross of US$44 million. In the rest of the world, the film made another US$54 million, which gave the first weekend a total of US$98 million, a number below expectations, but enough to lead the competition.
For comparison, all previous films in the Hunger Games Saga made more than US$100 million at the US box office alone, while, together, they all exceeded US$2.9 million. The Song of Birds and Serpents has a modest budget for large productions, which is around US$100 million.
In second place in the USA was the new film by Trolls: Together Again, which made US$30.6 million, and made an excellent US$76 million abroad, making it the best film worldwide at the box office with US$108 million. The North American number is 36% below what the previous film did, but the international performance puts the animation in a good position to surpass the first film’s $153 million.
Third place went to The Marvels, a new film from Disney and Marvel Studios, which continues a tragic adventure at the box office. After being the worst opening of the brand previously known for huge grosses, Nia DaCosta’s film made just US$ 10.2 million and presented a drop of more than 78% for the second weekend and surpassed the terrible performance of Man- Ant and Wasp: Quantumania, which had dropped an impressive 69%. Now, with the US$19 million made in the rest of the world, The Marvels has only US$161.3 million raised for a budget that exceeds US$200 million.
Closing the Top 5 are Eli Roth’s horror called Bloody Holidaywith US$10 million, and soon after followed by Five Nights at Freddy’swhich raised another US$3.2 million.
