whippletree riel: 'Hunger Games' Fans 'Blown Away' At Midnight Showing

Friday, March 23, 2012

'Hunger Games' Fans 'Blown Away' At Midnight Showing

Early reports predict midnight box-office totals of more than $18 million.
By Kevin P. Sullivan, with reporting by Stacey Sommer

Josh Hutcherson in "The Hunger Games"
Photo: Lionsgate

With midnight showings of "The Hunger Games" sold-out for weeks in advance, expectations for the highly anticipated film were even higher for those brave enough to journey to theaters in the middle of the night. Thankfully, Katniss Everdeen and the rest of the tributes did not disappoint.

Early reports for the midnight box-office totals predict returns north of $18 million, according to Variety. Those figures put "The Hunger Games" in contention with "The Dark Knight" and "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," which earned $18.5 million and $22.2 million at midnight, respectively. Early predictions for the weekend total estimate "The Hunger Games" earning $125 million.

MTV News caught some rabid fans on their way out of the first showings of "The Hunger Games" in New York City, and most of them couldn't have been more pleased.

Joanna Cruz said she was left "speechless" and was "on the edge of my seat the whole time." Some took their praise ever further. Judith Cruz called it the "the best movie ever." "I can't wait to see it again," she said. "It was awesome. I cried at certain parts."

Though most of the people we interviewed expressed their love of the movie as a whole, a few couldn't help but point out that they missed some scenes that ended up on the cutting-room floor. "I loved it. I thought it was awesome," Elena Lerner said. "It wasn't completely true to the book — they left out a few scenes — but overall, we were both freaking out in our seats. It was so good."

Josh Solomon felt similarly. "I thought the film was very good, well done," he said. "It missed a couple scenes from the book. It missed spots, but I thought it was done pretty well."

But for one fan in particular, the movie could never live up to the book. "I don't know how I feel about it. When I read a book, I get very in-depth, and I felt like they missed a lot of what was in the book," Samantha Cohen said.

On the other hand, Esther Portyansky said that the movie was a reminder of why she liked the book so much in the first place. "It was incredible. I was absolutely blown away by it," she said. "I read the books last summer, and I think I'd almost forgotten how amazing they were, frankly. The movie more than did it justice."

Check out everything we've got on "The Hunger Games."

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