Latest piece for Forbes
This past weekend was a record breaker at the box office for films starring female characters. Catching Fire from Lionsgate continued its march towards being one of the top grossing films of the year raking in another $74.5 million over the weekend and $110.1 million from Wednesday-Sunday giving it a total of almost $300 million in 10 days here in the US. That’s on top of a little over $275 million overseas. It is already the third top grossing film of the year and it really does have potential to overtake Iron Man 3 as the top grossing film of the year.
If it is able to gross $410 million — which really is conceivable — the film would be the first film that stars a woman to be at the top of box office for the year. Taking a look back all the way to 1990, films starring a woman or women have never led the box office at the end of the year. The only time it even came close was in 1997, with Titanic, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. All the rest of the top grossers are action adventure, superhero, Harry Potter or animated. Not a single woman.
