The upcoming The Hunger Games prequel, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes saw its opening weekend box office projections increase.
Box office tracking website Box Office Pro originally projected that the film would gross between $35 million and $45 million in its opening weekend.
The outlet also predicted the film would only gross between $90 million and $142 million in its entire run at the domestic box office.
The site has since adjusted their projections for the film upward noting that the film “continues to slightly over-perform with regard to expected tracking and pre-sales, particularly for post-preview showtimes on Friday.”
Box Office Pro now projects the film will gross between $38 million and $50 million in its opening weekend and go on to gross between $97 million and $157 million in its entire domestic run.
Even with the projections being adjusted upwards, the film is tracking for the worst opening weekend in The Hunger Games franchise.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 had the worst opening weekend back in 2015 at $102.6 million.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 opened with $121.8 million in 2014, The Hunger Games had an opening of $152.5 million in 2012, and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has the highest opening weekend in the franchise at $158 million.
The overall domestic projections are also far behind previous films in the franchise. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire had the highest domestic gross at $424.6 million.
The Hunger Games grossed $408 million, Mockingjay Part 1 grossed $337.1 million and Mockingjay Part 2 grossed $281.7 million.
The higher projections are still low enough that the film might not break even. Variety reported at the end of October that the film has a $100 million production budget.
That means the movie likely needs to earn around $250 million in order to break even to cover the box office split with theaters as well as Lionsgate’s marketing budget for the film.
If the film doesn’t break even and fares worse than the projections, this will be the third straight box office failure for Rachel Zegler.
She previously played Maria in the rebooted West Side Story that only grossed $74.8 million worldwide. The movie had a production budget of $100 million.
Zegler also portrayed Anthea in Shazam! Fury of the Gods. The movie only grossed $132.1 million worldwide. It had a production budget of $125 million.
What do you make of the revised projections for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes?