Box Office, Adaptation | featured news

The feast is on: "The Hunger Games" has taken in $68.25 million domestically in its first day, a record for a non-sequel. The Friday total for Lionsgate's "The Hunger Games" was the fifth-best opening day ever and puts the movie on track for the best debut weekend ever in March. That record is held by "Alice in Wonderland" with $116.1 million.

Early Friday returns indicate that The Help will gross around $14 million for the four-day holiday weekend. By Monday, the female-fueled drama will have jumped $120 million mark--exceeding even the most optimistic expectations. DreamWorks and Participant Media produced and co-financed the $25 million movie.

'Where the Wild Things Are' proved a bigger hit with adult audiences than family crowds as the adaptation of Maurice Sendak's children's book debuted at No. 1 with $32.5 million.

Warner Bros didn't know what to expect on such a unique project as Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are since it couldn't find a single comp... Grosses looked to come in past $12M from 3,735 locations, including 145 Imax theaters. And now what even rival studios thought was at best a $30M weekend is "off and running" to go past $38M.

WB pic casts spell over box office -- Warner Bros.’ “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” grossed a magical $58.4 million from 4,275 theaters as it opened Wednesday at the domestic B.O., including a potent $22.2 million in midnight shows.

Pic may score best midnight gross of all time -- In a massive start, Warner Bros.’ “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” easily scored the biggest midnight gross of all-time in earning $22.2 million as it unspooled in 3,003 runs at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

Only one new film ventures into wide release as Tom Hanks steps back into the role of Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon for the conspiracy thriller Angels & Demons. A sequel to the 2006 smash The Da Vinci Code, Angels reunites Hanks with director Ron Howard for the fourth time. Both films were based on the best-selling novels of Dan Brown. In the new installment, Langdon is called to the Vatican to help stop a secret society from killing the top Cardinals of the Catholic Church following the death of the Pope. Code was a global smash opening three years ago...