‘The Hunger Games’ earns record 68.3m dollars on opening day

London: New sci fi adventure flick ‘The Hunger Games’ has earned a staggering 68.3 million dollars on its opening day itself, which is the fifth-best opening day ever and a new record for a non-sequel. The massive takings included 19.7 million dollars from midnight showings as queuing fans scrambled for seats, a leading daily has reported.

The movie easily surpassed the previous opening-day record for a non-sequel which was 2010’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ with 40.8 million dollars. According to Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com, the big start should translate into an opening weekend of as much as 140 million dollars domestically. First-day revenues for ‘The Hunger Games’ were well behind the record 91.1 million dollars for last summer’s ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.’‘The Hunger Games’ still came within a few million dollars of each of the last three ‘Twilight’ movies, whose opening days ranged from 68.5 to 72.7 million dollars. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence as a teen forced to compete in a televised death match against other youths in a future North American society where a privileged capital city oppresses the people of 12 outlying worker districts. It is based on the first book in a best-selling trilogy by author Suzanne Collins. ANI