Hunger Games Whets Lions Gate’s Appetite

The Hunger Games | BCBusiness
Vancouver’s Lions Gate Entertainment fed voracious fans with the weekend premiere of The Hunger Games.

Vancouver-based Lions Gate fed voracious fans over the weekend with the record-breaking premiere of The Hunger Games.

For a studio whose bread and butter was low-budget horror films and Tyler Perry’s endless array of Madea movies, Lions Gate Entertainment has only whet its appetite for big blockbusters with the recent release of The Hunger Games.
 
The Vancouver-based studio, which produced the dystopian teen action flick, saw a record breaking premiere weekend to the tune of $214.3 million internationally.
 
Analysts expect the movie to pull in at least $300 million, and the smashing success has already caused Lions Gate’s stock to spike 43 per cent in the lead up to the film.
 
Lions Gate has obviously hit the mark with the trilogy. The studio purchased the rights in 2008 hoping to mimic the success of the Twilight franchise. But the movie has exceeded box office predictions and puts little Lions Gate into the black.
 
In the last several years, the little studio that could has had a tough time turning a profit. According to The Vancouver Sun, the company saw losses in the last four of five years. Watching fans scramble to see the starter movie in a sure-to-be popular franchise must have been a welcome sight for studio execs and will surely leave them hungry for more blockbusters.