Box Office: 'Catching Fire' Ablaze Friday With $70.5 Million

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is set to score the top November opening of all time:

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire topped the Friday box office with a historic $70.5 million, one of the biggest opening-day grosses of all time in North America and putting the sequel back on course to match the $152.5 million earned by the first film in March 2012.

Catching Fire is also destined to score the top November opening of all time, eclipsing the $142.8 million earned by fellow YA film adaptation The Twilight Saga: New Moon. The movie, earning an A CinemaScore, marks another major victory for Lionsgate and is reaching a broader audience than Hunger Games did, with males making up 12 percent more of the audience.

Overseas, where it is rolling out in 65 markets, Catching Fire has already earned a stellar $64 million. The movie is doing double the business of Hunger Games overall, and is four times larger in Germany and nearly 40 percent bigger in Australia.

In 2012, Hunger Games topped out at $408 million domestically and $283.2 million internationally for a global total of $691.2 million; Catching Fire is expected to do substantially more. By Sunday alone, the movie could cross $300 million in global ticket sales.