As expected, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire dominated this weekend’s US box office with a dominant performance. Jennifer Lawrence n' co managed to break November records, while providing Lionsgate with their biggest opening ever.

Jennifer LawrenceJennifer Lawrence in Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Catching Fire, which has already hit the U.K with great success, and received unanimous praise from the critics, managed to accumulate $161.1 million over the weekend, topping the charts by a huge distance. The competition, however, wasn’t exactly fierce. Thor: The Dark World provided the sternest test, but still managed to pull in 10x less than Katniss with $14 million.

The Marvel hero can be forgiven though, considering the action-packed, Chris Hemsworth-starring film was in its third week of release.

In his review of Catching Fire, our very own Rich Cline said: "After 2012's The Hunger Games caught us off-guard with its subtle themes, this sequel more than lives up to the hype, dramatically expanding the scale of the action while letting the actors deepen their characters. It's a full-on action epic that cleverly retains author Suzanne Collins' narrative trick of telling the story through a flawed perspective. And it provides the needed push to give the whole saga real momentum."

Read our review for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire here