娱乐英语新闻:"Catching Fire", "Frozen" set holiday weekend box office records

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- Last week's winner "Hunger Games: Catching Fire" still led the box office this weekend and Thanksgiving holiday. Disney's animation "Frozen" became the second hottest film.

"Hunger Games: Catching Fire" grossed 110.2 million U.S. dollars in the five-day Thanksgiving holiday (from Wednesday night to Sunday), becoming the best-selling and most popular movie of all time to surpass 2001's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, " which earned 82.4 million dollars during the holiday.

The sequel is estimated to roll up 74.5 million dollars in ticket sales this weekend which also generated the fourth best second weekend in history after "The Avengers" (with 103.1 million dollars), "Avatar" (75.6 million) and "The Dark Knight" (75.2 million). For the three-day figures, the film was down 53 percent from last weekend's debut.

"Catching Fire" has grossed 296.6 million dollars in North America since opening 10 days ago.

Walt Disney's 3-D computer-animated musical "Frozen" hit the second place in five-day and three-day box office with 93.4 million dollars and 66.7 million dollars. It scored the top Thanksgiving debut of all time eclipsing the 80.1 million dollars five-day gross of Pixar's "Toy Story 2" in 1999.

"Frozen" was written by Jennifer Lee based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Snow Queen." Lee also directed the film with Chris Buck.

The 3-D animation earned a 84 percent positive rating from reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and a solid "A+" from CinemaScore. About 57 percent of the audience is female moviegoers and those 25 and under made up 58 percent.

"Frozen" drove most families to the cinema with 81 percent of the film's total audience which shows the film is on track to be a real Christmas present for Disney. Children ages two to 11 accounted for 38 percent of the audience.

Another Disney's 3D film "Thor: the Dark World" was ranked the third for reaping a tickets income of 11.1 million dollars this weekend which represented a 22 percent decline from last weekend. The superhero sequel grossed 15.5 million dollars over the five- day period. "Thor" has already taken in a respectable 186.7 million dollars in North America through 24 days of release.

Rounding out the 10 most popular films in North America from the Thanksgiving holiday weekend starting Wednesday night, as estimated by studios, were "The Best Man Holiday" (11.1 million dollars), "Homefront" (9.8 million), "Delivery Man" (9.7 million), "The Book Thief" (6.4 million), "Black Nativity" (5 million), " Philomena" (4.6 million) and "Last Vegas" (3.8 million).