• by Wayne Friedman , November 19, 2023

For the second weekend in a row, a highly touted new release from a major movie franchise -- Lionsgate Films' "Hunger Games" -- has fallen short. 

Comscore says the movie “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” took in decent but not top-level $44 million in box-office sales domestically and an overall $98.5 million globally.

The four previous “Hunger Games” movies -- released between 2012 through 2015 -- had a domestic opening of between $100 million and $160 million. The most recent movie had none of the original performers of the early films, including Jennifer Lawrence, who as a result became a breakout star.

Somewhat better news for the movie was its efficiency when it comes to national TV advertising spending -- just $8.3 million, according to estimates from EDO Ad EnGage, for all its pre-opening national TV marketing. This is below the typical successful wide-release benchmark of around $20 million in national TV spend.

Competing with “Hunger Games” was Universal Pictures' “Trolls Band Together” in its first week of release, which earned an expected $31.8 million. This movie spent $22.45 million on its national TV marketing campaign prior to this past weekend’s opening, according to EDO Ad EnGage.

A week ago, Walt Disney’s “The Marvels” underwhelmed in its opening.

Coming in at $47.5 million, it is the worst-performing release from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “The Marvels”  was under the typical Marvel-film brand benchmark of $100 million for a domestic weekend opening.

To make matters worse, for the second week of its release, “The Marvels” had a massive drop of 79% to $10.2 million from its Week One results.