Box Office: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Sets Thanksgiving Record, Edges Out Frozen for Top Spot

YA dystopia rakes in the big bucks during the Turkey Day holiday and beating out Harry Potter for a new box office milestone

By Josh Grossberg Dec 02, 2013 2:17 PMTags
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This was no turkey.

Moviegoers couldn't get enough of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday as the Lionsgate sequel gobbled up a whopping $110.1 million during the Wednesday to Sunday period, including a $75 million Friday-Sunday tally to best Frozen.

Disney's 3D animated musical hit theaters Wednesday and also did spectacular business, earning an estimated $93 million over the five-day frame, including $66 million according to stats compiled by Box Office Mojo.

Catching Fire and Frozen set Thanksgiving records for the three-day weekend and five-day holiday, blowing past the mark set by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which brought in a then-boffo $57.5 million and $82.4 million over those same frames.  

NEWS: Hunger Games: Catching Fire opens big, breaks November record

Even more remarkable, despite managing to come in second in the box office rankings, Frozen still achieved the milestone of being the biggest holiday debut ever, surpassing Toy Story 2's $80.1 million five-day Thanksgiving record set back in 1999.

Based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, The Snow Queen, and featuring the voice of Kristen Bell as Anna, the young princess of Arendelle, the flick also soared past the Mouse House's last princess-centric cartoon, 2010's Tangled.

With a domestic haul of $296 million in its second week of release along with the cool $276 million in foreign ticket sales it's racked up, Catching Fire has so far blazed a $573 million trail at the worldwide box office. And by the looks of things, it doesn't look like it's going to be cooling anytime soon.

Disney and Marvel, meanwhile, continued to showcase their box office muscle as Thor: The Dark World hammered its way to a third place finish with $15.4 million for the five-day Thanksgiving holiday after opening at number one earlier this month. All told, the mighty thunder god has grossed a massive $591 million globally.

And in a bit of counter-programming, Universal's rom-com The Best Man Holiday held strong in the fourth spot with $11.1 million. Its cumulative total now stands at $63.4 million after 17 days in release.

Here's a complete rundown of the Wednesday-Sunday estimates, per Box Office Mojo:

1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: $110 million

2. Frozen: $93 million

3. Thor: The Dark World: 15.4 million

4. The Best Man Holiday: 11.1 million

5. Homefront: $9.7 million

6. Delivery Man: $9.6 million

7. The Book Thief: $6.3 million

8. Black Nativity: $5 million

9. Philomena: $4.6 million

10. Last Vegas: $3.8 million