'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1' Becomes First Franchise to Win Consecutive Box Office Years
on
January 22, 2015
By Shawn Robbins
What became seemingly inevitable over the holidays finally came to fruition on Wednesday:
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, with an otherwise anti-climactic daily gross of $106,407, overtook
Guardians of the Galaxy as North America's top domestic grosser of 2014. The former's total now stands at $333.18 million -- topping the latter's most recently reported tally of $333.17 million.
Why, nearly one month into the new year, is this newsworthy?
For starters, it's the first time any franchise has ever "won" back-to-back box office years. For all the
Harry Potter,
The Lord of the Rings,
Star Wars,
Twilight, and superhero movies out there, Katniss Everdeen is the first iconic character to champion two straight calendar victories. (Of course, scheduling, competition, and a bevy of other factors weigh in here... but that's beside the point.)
By extension, it's also the first time any studio has won back-to-back years in the modern box office tracking era (an impressive feat for the recently-minted seventh major studio, Lionsgate).
BoxOffice
previously analyzed the full perspective of what
Mockingjay - Part 1's top annual ranking could mean before the film's release last November. The penultimate franchise chapter may have fallen somewhat short of many industry expectations, but that's a minor footnote against an otherwise impressive accomplishment. Nothing is taken away from
Guardians' spectacular run either.
For what it's worth, this is the second straight year the
Hunger Games franchise upset Disney and Marvel for the top domestic spot (
Catching Fire led the way past
Iron Man 3 in 2013). Will the story repeat again for 2015 as Lionsgate closes out its biggest success to-date come November? Possibly, but we're fairly confident Disney's
Star Wars: The Force Awakens and
Avengers: Age of Ultron will have something to say about that.
