With Bond starting to return his famous Walther PPK to the holster, Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of District 12 and The Hunger Games, notched her bow and fired a strong first shot at the U.S. box office this weekend. Mockingjay, Part 2, the fourth installment in Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games series, opened its domestic run with a $101.2 million take over this past three day, non-holiday weekend. For the grand finale of this massively popular, $2.5 billon (and counting) quadrilogy, Jennifer Lawrence as sharp shooting freedom fighter Katniss Everdeen goes on the offensive. Her and series stalwarts Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), Gale (Liam Hemsworth,) and Johanna Mason (Jena Malone) along with a host of newcomers like Commander Lynne (Gwendoline Christie) and Lieutenant Jackson (Michelle Forbes) set off on a daring attempt to take over the capital city and overthrow its dictator, President Snow (Donald Sutherland). In addition to saving the world from fascism, Jennifer Lawrence’s character must make a decision in the well-stewed dilemma of whether to give her heart to Josh Hutcherson or Liam Hemsworth. Despite recording the 4th largest opening of 2015 and breaking into the nine-digit range in a matter of days, Mockingjay 2 is still catching flack for being 19% short of the first Mockingjay’s opening figures. Lionsgate stock was down 8.5 percent on Friday in conjunction with early reports that the film would fall short of the studio’s $120 million projections, and may continue its downward trend on Monday.

Its international figures were equally impressive, though they suffered the same bittersweet fate of having to be compared against the exceptional success of the previous Hunger Games films. Mockingjay, Part 2 opened to $146 million in 87 international markets, landing in first place in all but six. Unlike most recent major releases, and probably due to the fast approaching tidal wave of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Lionsgate chose not to stagger this film’s global release dates. It moved into all of its markets save for Greece, Spain, and India over this past weekend. In the UK, its biggest overseas territory, Mockingjay Part 2 unseated Spectre after three remarkable weeks at the top, recording a $17.1 million take. China, unsurprisingly, was its second biggest country with what will be a somewhat disappointing $16.2 million launch. Next came Germany, which continued last week’s trend of contributing unusually high numbers and netted $14.4 million on 661 screens. France, where people are still feeling the trauma of November 13’s terrorist attacks and blockbusters of this sort typically suffer mixed fates, was good for $7.1 million. Next came Brazil and Australia, each with $6.8 million, followed by Russia at $6.7 million. In Venezuela, where the film’s message of popular protest struck a chord, it made an exceptional $5.6 million. Overall, its domestic and international debut of $247 million is behind Mockingjay 1’s $274 million, but a pressty good result nonetheless.

On the domestic front, Spectre came in second with $14.6 million, dropping 57% from last weekend and reaching a North American cumulative of $153 million. Next was Seth Rogen’s comedy The Night Before, also with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony Mackie, which opened on the low side of its projections at $10.1 million. It was followed by Secret In Their Eyes. This remake of 2010 best foreign film Oscar El Secreto De Sus Ojos, from Argentina, stars Julia Roberts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Nicole Kidman. It opened to $6.3 million, the worst debut of Ms. Roberts’ career.

Back on the international chart second place went to Spectre, which added $65.7 million overseas even as it slowed down its global assault. Highlights for Her Majesty’s most famous secret agent came from China ($12.8 million), Germany ($8.1 million), the UK, and France (both $5.9 million). With domestic earnings of $14.6 million tacked on, Spectre pushed passed the half-billion mark and now sits at a global cumulative of $524 million. Next on the international chart was Taiwanese comedy Our Times, which opened in mainland China this weekend and made the bulk of its $12 million there. After that came Transporter: Refueled, which in a late push after its mid-September release added $9.8 million in six foreign markets this weekend.

Next weekend we’ll follow the progress of Mockingjay, Part 2 as well as the domestic launches of Creed, a spinoff of the Rocky franchise, along with Disney and Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur and Fox’s Victor Frankenstein.

Lorenzo Soria