--- description: Hooray for Hollywood! The American movie industry, in the mopes for most of last year, rebounded vibrantly in the first three months of 2012. Blessed... title: First Quarter 2012: The Hunger Games Leads a Winning Winter image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltef93f19794fb81bf/698a902c9d83e8babeb9fda2/hunger-games-box-office-report.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # First Quarter 2012: The Hunger Games Leads a Winning Winter by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Apr 6, 2012 2:11 PM CUT  Stanley Tucci and Jennifer Lawrence Stanley Tucci and Jennifer LawrenceMurray Close/Lionsgate by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Apr 6, 2012 2:11 PM CUT Hooray for Hollywood! The American movie industry, in the mopes for most of last year, rebounded vibrantly in the first three months of 2012\. Blessed with a breakout smash in _The Hunger Games_ and a tree-hugging toon in _Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax_, the quarter also boasted strong showings from old stars (Denzel Washington, Dwayne Johnson) and newish ones (Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill). The Jan.-Mar. box office at North American theaters accounted for nearly $2.6 billion, up about $50 million, or 23%, from the same period last year. To recall the moguls’ frowny faces that the new year has replaced with smiles, consider that until late last April, when _Fast Five_ kicked off the early summer season with an $86.2-million first weekend, no movie had earned as much as $40 million in its opening three days. (_Rio_ came closest, with $39.2 million in mid-April.) This time, two films — the spy-chase drama _Safe House_, starring Washington and Ryan Reynolds, and the weepie _The Vow_, pairing Tatum with Rachel McAdams — broke the $40-million barrier on the same February weekend. Three weeks later, _The Lorax_ huffed and gruffed its way to a $70.1-million opening; and three weeks after that, _The Hunger Games_ shot to a $152.5-million debut, the third highest in domestic history. **(READ: TIME’s** [**review of** **_The Hunger Games_**](http://entertainment.time.com/2012/03/21/the-hunger-games-the-odds-are-not-in-your-favor/ "undefined")**)** Everything about early 2012 was bigger, better, more than the year before. Twelve of the first 13 weekend grosses of 2012 have been higher, often far higher, than those of the same weeks last year. In Jan.-Mar. 2011, six films that opened at the top of their respective weekend box-office lists earned less than $20 million; this year, only one did — Liam Neeson’s frostbite thriller _The Grey_, at $19.7 million. In last year’s first quarter, only two films had managed to earn $100 million in North America, and those just barely: the Johnny Depp cartoon Western _Rango_ at $109.2 million and Adam Sandler’s _Just Go With It_ at $100.8 million. This year, four movies have earned well over $100 million domestic, and another hit, _Journey 2: The Mysterious Island_, with Johnson and Josh Hutcherson (who also plays Peeta in _The Hunger Games_), will reach $100 million this weekend. _The Lorax_, in its first weekend, secured the biggest opening for any movie based on a Seuss book, for any nonsequel since Tim Burton’s _Alice in Wonderland_ exactly two years before (a record that was soon obliterated by _The Hunger Games_) and for any animated feature since _Toy Story 3_ in June 2010\. Still percolating, _The Lorax_ is certain to pass $200 million, becoming the first animated feature to exceed that mark since _Tangled_, released in Nov. 2010\. _The Hunger Games_, of course, is its own phenomenon. The adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ best seller could come near $350 million by the time its North American run has ended. It might even beat the $381 million earned by last year’s champ, _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2_ — and that film opened in mid-summer, when most blockbuster earn their fattest bucks. **(READ: TIME’s** [**review of** **_The Lorax_**](// "undefined")**)** The quarter did finish about 2% behind the same period two years ago, but early 2010 was a fluke, or maybe a freak. _Alice in Wonderland_, another fantasy film with Depp as its star, was a startling smasheroo, earning $116.1 million the first weekend of March and nearly $300 million that month; it accounted for one of every six tickets bought in the first quarter of that year. Even bigger was _Avatar_, which had opened in Dec. 2009 but kept on soaring for months; in Jan.-Mar. 2010 it grossed $457.5 million, or about 23% of the box-office revenue in the period. So two films earned almost 40% of the money spent on movies that quarter. By contrast, the mammoth grosses for _The Hunger Games_ and _The Lorax_ together represent less than 17% of this quarter’s total take. That means that audiences have found plenty of other movies to whet their fancy. Let’s look at the 10 top-grossing pictures of the quarter in North American theaters, with totals through Apr. 1, day of release and production budget, all as reported by [Box Office Mojo](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/quarterly/?view=releasedate&yr=2012&quarter=Q1 "undefined"): 1\. _The Hunger Games_, $248.5 million, 3/23, $78 million 2\. _Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax_, $189.3 million, 3/2, $70 million 3\. _Safe House_, $123.9 million, 2/10, $85 million 4\. _The Vow_, $123.5 million, 2/10, $30 million 5\. _Journey 2: The Mysterious Island_, $98.5 million, 2/10, $79 million 6\. _21 Jump Street_, $92.9 million, 3/16, $42 million 7\. _Act of Valor_, $67.7 million, 2/24, $12 million 8\. _Contraband_, $66.5 million, 1/13, $25 million 9\. _John Carter_, $66.2 million, 3/2, $250 million 10\. _Chronicle_, $63.8 million, 2/3, $12 million. **(READ: TIME’s** [**review of** **_Journey 2: The Mysterious Island_**](http://entertainment.time.com/2012/02/09/journey-2-the-mysterious-island-the-rocks-latest-family-role/ "undefined")**)** We’re not saying this is a list of masterpieces, but consider the breadth of genres: dramas, love stories, thrillers, fantasies, an action comedy, a horror movie, all appealing to a wide range of audiences. More than three-fifths of the _Hunger Games_ crowd was female, certifying women as the most reliable box-office demographic. Young women also made _The Vow_ a hit: 72% were females, and 55% under 25\. _Act of Valor_, the gung-ho Navy SEALs simulated-war film, pulled in the guys (71%), but the other action movies weren’t overwhelming boys’-club: women comprised 50% of the ticket buyers for _Safe House_ and 47% of the audience for _21 Jump Street_, the rowdy comedy pairing Hill and Tatum. _Safe House_ did attract a more diverse ethnic crowd: African-Americans and Latinos accounted for more than 60% of attendees. Families flocked to _The Lorax_ — children under 12 and their parents constituted 68% of the customers — while _Journey 2_ played well across all demographics but skewed younger. Note that four of the top five first-quarter hits were mid-budget projects, costing between $70 million and $85 million to produce. _The Vow_ made back four times its production cost in North America; _Act of Valor_ and the found-footage horror movie _Chronicle_ recouped more than five times their budgets. The average cost of the top 10 movies would be a reasonable $48 million — if it weren’t for that maxi-budget, mega-flop blight on the season known as _John Carter_. **(READ: TIME’s** [**review of** **_John Carter_**](http://entertainment.time.com/2012/03/08/john-carter-andrew-stantons-martian-mission-impossible/ "undefined")**)** Eons in the making and budgeted at $250 million, Disney’s Martian epic opened at domestic theaters to a relatively soft $30.2 million. Reviewers were of two minds about the picture: its so-so 50% score on the critics’ aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes was higher than those for _Journey 2_ (42%), _The Vow_ (28%) and _Act of Valor_ (25%). But on the second weekend, the _Carter_ gross dropped a steep 55%, and the studio announced that it was taking a $200-million write-down on the movie. Essentially, Disney had turned the _Carter_ failure into the movie’s marketing campaign, as well as a news story for late-night comics to pounce on. “Disney will lose $200 million on its new movie, John Carter, about a Civil War soldier on Mars,” Jimmy Fallon noted. “Disney could tell they were going to lose lots of money when they realized they made a movie about” — and here he shouts — “_a Civil War soldier on Mars!_” Conan O’Brien observed that the movie’s flop status “doesn’t bode well for Disney’s upcoming $250 million epic, _Jimmy Carter_.” News organizations began referring to the movie as the all-time top flop. **(SEE:** [**Top 10 Biggest Money-Losing Movies of All Time**](doesn’t bode well for Disney’s upcoming $250 million epic, “Jimmy Carter.” "undefined")**)** It’s true that, on our quarterly top 10 of domestic movie grosses, _John Carter_ languishes in ninth place, below movies that cost a tenth or a twentieth as much to make. But there’s a little thing called The Rest of the World: movie houses outside the U.S. and Canada, which bring in well over half of the total theatrical gross. And there _Carter_ is doing OK. As of Apr. 1, it had earned $188.3 million abroad — the second best foreign take for a 2012 Hollywood film, behind only _Journey 2_ and ahead of _The Hunger Games_ and _The Lorax_. Here are the quarter’s quintet of global winners — each with domestic gross, foreign gross and worldwide total, respectively, through Apr. 1 — in millions (m) of dollars, again compiled from Box Office Mojo: 1\. _The Hunger Games_, $248.5m + $115m = $363.3m 2\. _Journey 2: The Mysterious Island_, $98.5m + $214m = $312.5m 3\. _John Carter_, $66.2m + $188.3m = $254.5m 4\. _Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax_, $189.3m + $37.7m = $227m 5\. _Safe House_, $123.9 m + $71.1m = $195m All kinds of qualifiers must be applied here. Not every movie opens simultaneously worldwide; _The Lorax_ has yet to play in France, Germany, Italy or the United Kingdom. And _The Hunger Games_ may yet become as sensational abroad as it has been at home. But it has some catching-up to do. So far, the film’s foreign income is only about 31% of domestic revenue. That’s way below the norm for a worldwide blockbuster. On average, the top 10 all-time worldwide champions earned two-thirds of their money abroad. If _The Hunger Games_ were following that trend, it would already have grossed $750 million worldwide, instead of the $365 million it banked in its first 10 days of release. **(READ:** [**Why** **_The Hunger Games_** **Might Not Become an All-Time Hit**](http://entertainment.time.com/2012/04/01/the-hunger-games-kills-off-two-new-combatants-perseus-and-snow-white/?iid=ent-main-box-office "undefined")**)** Meanwhile, in _its_ first 30 days of worldwide release, _John Carter_ has grossed $253.9 million — more than its lofty budget. That won’t make the movie profitable, since only about half of the box-office revenue is returned to studios. But it should be enough to keep the film off the all-time flops list, in the abashed company of the 1995 pirate epic _Cutthroat Island_ ($98-million budget, $18.5-million global gross) or Disney’s own motion-capture comedy _Mars Needs Moms_, which cost between $150 million and $250 million and, when released last March, earned only $39 million worldwide. (Note to the Mouse House: Call a moratorium on Mars movies.) Maybe the foreign markets will save John Carter’s bacon. They’ve done crazier things. One of the biggest global hits of the last few months, earning more than $300 million since its Nov. 2011 release, is a French comedy called _Intouchables_ (_The Untouchables_), about a stuffy aristocrat who becomes paralyzed and hires a Franco-African innocent to care for him. The film has amassed about half its money in its home country and in French-speaking territories, but also $69 million in Germany and $14 million in Italy. The Weinstein Company will release _Intouchables_ in the States in May, hoping that the very local humor can somehow translate into American. That’s a long shot — but then who’d have thought that the girl with the bow and arrow would become a 10-day, $350-million heroine in one of Hollywood’s warmest winters? ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7122879/first-quarter-2012-the-hunger-games-leads-a-winning-winter/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7122879/first-quarter-2012-the-hunger-games-leads-a-winning-winter/"},"headline":"First Quarter 2012: The Hunger Games Leads a Winning Winter","datePublished":"2012-04-06T14:11:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T06:15:10.174Z","description":"Hooray for Hollywood! 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