The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 Grosses $16 Million in Thursday Previews

According to Deadline, the final film in the franchise is still hot for the taking with fans swarming in to see the final battle between Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and President Snow (Donald Sutherland). She’s fiercely glum throughout, as her Katniss Everdeen leads a rebel commando squad into the heart of the Capitol.

“Part 2” is flying high in its first US showings with $16 million in Thursday night previews – just not as high as the previous three films.

The success of the latter surely helped launch the former as Hollywood took notice of the big box office numbers that could result from adaptations of young adult novels.

Though The Hunger Games may be over, its legacy will live forever. The success of the movie raised Jennifer Lawrence to superstar status immediately.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died while The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 was filming, gives a memorable final performance. Perhaps, this was a sign that the audiences had become exhausted of the series. A new report from Yahoo indicates Lawrences hesitation to helm a prequel story to the current Hunger Games continuity. Part 1 brought in $121.9 million domestically in its opening weekend a year ago.

The movie is praised by critics, giving Mockingjay Part 2 a worthy sendoff for the franchise. Even “Mockingjay – Part 1” had an opening of $17 million. It’s an interesting arc the character goes through in the films and Lawrence brings it genuinely to the screen.

Much of “Mockingjay – Part 2” centers on Katniss and a small platoon of soldiers advancing on the Capitol – first as part of a propaganda mission, but eventually on the front lines. But what they didn’t know, was that Lawrence was being fed instructions, via her own secret earpiece, from her co-stars Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson as well as Smosh superfan Dylan Miceli-Nelson.

Altogether, the entire franchise has grossed more than $2.3 billion worldwide.

“Mockingjay – Part 2” is a grim, dark, trippy, violent and sometimes just plain freaky journey, which makes for a fitting if uneven conclusion to a film series that’s always been weird.